Meeting Minutes: May

June 3, 2016June 3, 20163 Comments

Several interesting events in June worth checking out!

June 4-5
Come check out the quilt bombing on the Iron Horse Trail in Danville. Hosted by Wooden Gate Quilts, quilts will be hung on the fence of the Iron Horse Trail that runs near the shop. The viewing area is between Prospect Ave. and Linda Mesa from 9:30-5:30, weather permitting.

June 18-19
KPFA Summer Crafts Fair
Craneway Pavilion, Richmond
This is a free arts and crafts fair with a “Quilts and Quilters” Exhibit and Sale.

What are we up to?

Two of our members, Darci and Amelia, are working on a sister sewing group that focuses on garment sewing. I have to say, we love seeing the garments our members made at our quilt meetings! However, if you want a more focused garment group, contact us and we will put you in touch with the new East Bay Stitchers group!

Many of us are interested in a Bay Area – wide modern quilters meet up! Stay tuned for more details for a possible Fall meet up at the de Young. Which incidentally, will coincide with an exciting upcoming exhibit, On The Grid: Textiles and Minimalism.

As always, Show and Tell was a real treat and super inspiring. I didn’t end up taking any pictures (low phone battery, dang it) but you can always check out our Flickr page, the Instagram hashtag #ebmq, or come to our next meeting on June 28th from 6:30-8:30pm at A Verb For Keeping Warm!

Stitch Modern 2016 viewing hours cancelled 5/7 and 5/8

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016Leave a comment

Dearest Stitch Modern enthusiasts and, dare we say, fans! We have the unfortunate luck of needing to close our 2016 exhibition early. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to open the doors to visitors to view our quilts this weekend, May 7th and 8th. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please do come visit us at our monthly meetings if you like! We are meeting the last Tuesday of May. May 31st at 6:30pm at A Verb for Keeping Warm

Members: we are still scheduled to remove quilts from the gallery on 5/9 at 6PM.

Stitch Modern 2016

March 7, 2016June 4, 20161 Comment

StitchModern2016 The East Bay Modern Quilters are proud to present Stitch Modern 2016, our 5th annual quilt show at the Piedmont Center for the Arts. The East Bay Modern Quilters focus on modern design and personal expression through quilting. As a non-juried show, there are no hard rules – this is quilting our own way, whether it’s with the latest fabrics and traditional patterns, or free piecing with no pattern at all!

We hope you will join us! Click the links below to find out more about our exciting events.

*Keep up with what’s happening at the show by searching #StitchModern or check out our Tumblr!

April 8th – May 8th
Piedmont Center for the Arts
801 Magnolia Ave, Piedmont, CA.
Gallery Hours: 12pm-3pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

**STITCH MODERN UPDATE** Due to unforeseen circumstances Stitch Modern will be closed this Saturday and Sunday, May 7th and 8th at The Piedmont Center for the Arts. Unfortunately, that means our show has ended early. Thank you, everyone!

April 8th: 6:30pm-9pm, Piedmont Center for the Arts FREE
Opening Reception – Join the artists for an evening of fun, food, and celebration.

April 10th: 12:00pm – 3:00pm, Piedmont Center for the Arts FREE
Label That Quilt! – Don’t become a “Maker Unknown!” Bring your stack of unlabeled quilts and we’ll help you label them for posterity. Ideas and supplies will be provided.

April 13th: 7pm, Piedmont Center for the Arts
Lecture: Global Perspectives in Quilting, Talks by Youngmin Lee & Sujata Shah $10 collected at the door, doors open at 6:30pm

April 17th: 10am-4pm, Piedmont Center for the Arts
Workshop: Quilting by the Seat of Your Pants: Designing an Original Quilt with Pamela Rocco ~~$65~~ SOLD OUT

April 26th: 6:30pm – 8:30pm, A Verb for Keeping Warm FREE
East Bay Modern Quilters Monthly Meeting – As always, on the last Tuesday of the month, the East Bay Modern Quilters meeting is the place to be! If you’ve never been before, don’t be shy, come and introduce yourself. Bring your latest project for show and tell or just come and hang out!

May 1st: 12pm-2:30pm, Piedmont Center for the Arts FREE
Deanna Davis Children’s Quilt Day – an afternoon of making charity quilts in honor of Deanna Davis. Come and celebrate the life and passion of our friend, Deanna, by helping to make quilts for her favorite charity, The Children’s Quilt Project. This is an activity that is good for the whole family and there will be activities suitable for all ages. Fabric kits will be provided, bring your sewing machine or just bring yourself. People new to sewing are welcome!
*There will also be a Girl Scout Bake sale!

The East Bay Modern Quilters would like to thank Fried & Williams for underwriting this exhibit.

Stitch Modern 2016: Talks by Youngmin Lee & Sujata Shah

March 7, 2016March 17, 20161 Comment

StitchModern2016Header

Global Perspectives in Quilting, Talks by Youngmin Lee & Sujata Shah

Where: Piedmont Center For The Arts

When: April 13th, 2016, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

$10 collected at the door

Doors open at 6:30

The East Bay Modern Quilters are so excited to present an evening with quilter and author Sujata Shah and artist Youngmin Lee as they each discuss their work. You can read more about each speaker below. We hope to see you there!

SujataShah Sujata Shah is a graphic designer, textile lover, quilter and author. She is originally from Mumbai, India and has just recently moved to San Francisco from the East Coast.

Sujata finds inspiration from the textures and imperfections of handmade objects. Her exposure to different cultures has helped develop her distinctive style of quilts, which blends utilitarian and traditional quilts in an exciting way. In 2014, she published her book, Cultural Fusion Quilts: A Melting Pot of Piecing Traditions.

Talking about the process of quilting, she says, ”I find hand stitching therapeutic and nourishing to the soul. Through my quilts I remain connected to my past, my culture and heritage. The more I hand stitch, stories of my daily life get stitched into my quilts.”

She has just returned from a trip to India with Amy Butler where they were exploring the palaces and markets, forts and mud huts, folk artists and museums, meeting ralli quilters, embroidery artists, and block printers to learn from the best in preparation for a textile tour in 2017. She took some amazing photos which you can see on her Facebook page.

Her presentation will include a slide show of her travels in India as well as her journey as a quilter. She will also be showing original quilts from her book and share how she connects the dots between her memories of the past and today’s creative process.

youngminlee Youngmin Lee is a Korean-born artist who studied fashion and textiles and worked in the fashion industry before moving to the United States in 1996. She now makes work using a traditional Korean technique called Bojagi.

Bojagi wrapping cloths are a unique form of Korean textile art. Lee often uses a Ssamsol technique (similar to a flat fell seam) to make her work. This technique creates a patchworked piece of cloth that is fully reversible and is traditionally used for a variety of things such as gift wrapping, covering food, and clothing storage.

Because she has a background in fashion, she used to think more in terms of Western-style construction techniques, but that changed when she began working with bojagi. She says, “[It] made my direction to go back to my own heritage and culture, which feels more comfortable and natural. Textiles give me freedom to connect my current and past, traditions and culture that I belonged before and now. They also connect my imagination with reality. I cut, arrange, and put textile pieces together to find the way that I move along.”

Moshi jogakbo 31″ x 33″

Youngmin’s pieces are extremely time consuming to create and gorgeous to behold. You can get a peak at her work on her website, but make sure to come to the lecture. These are pieces that must be seen up close and in person to be truly appreciated!

Stitch Modern 2016: Quilting by the Seat of Your Pants with Pamela Rocco

March 7, 2016March 17, 20162 Comments

Quilting by the Seat of Your Pants: Designing an Original Quilt with Pamela Rocco

Where: Piedmont Center for The Arts
When: Sunday, April 17th, 2016, 10am – 4pm
$65 Wait List (20 student limit) SOLD OUT

pamrocco The East Bay Modern Quilters are excited to announce that our 2016 Stitch Modern workshop will be taught by Pamela Rocco. She has been quilting for more than 40 years and received her formative training when she was in Appalachia with the Teacher Corps in 1969 and met women who inspired her to learn how to quilt.

Spines 63.5″ x 83″ Pam Rocco, 2013

Many people are familiar with Pam through her monthly column, Words to Quilt By, in the Quilters Newsletter magazine. Her improv style is easily recognizable with her use of bright, bold, and ethnic fabrics.

Mosaic, 46.5″ x 56″ Pam Rocco 2013

Pam’s quilts have been heavily influence by other cultures and she feels that her best work is often ad libbed – made up on the spur of the moment using whatever is at hand. She sees quilting as a salvage art, incorporating both new and used materials to play with form and color. In her world, almost anything can be incorporated into a quilt once you learn how to see design possibilities everywhere you look.

Broken Paths, 45″ x 61.5″ Pam Rocco 2011

In this one day workshop, you will explore how to design an original quilt using two techniques, viewfinder and thumbnail sketching. Learning to work more intuitively and improvisationally, you will explore all the elements of quilt design to create your own one of a kind quilt.

PicMonkey Collage

The workshop will be held on Sunday, April 17th from 10am until 4pm at the Piedmont Center for the Arts. ~~We will have a maximum of 20 students, so sign up soon!~~ SOLD OUT

Meeting Minutes: February

February 26, 2016Leave a comment

Update!

There will not be a meeting in March. Instead, the meeting has been moved to April 5th, 6:30 pm, at the Piedmont Center for the Arts to hang up the quilts for our show, Stitch Modern. I hope to see you there.

Upcoming Shows:

Neighborhoods Coming Together: Quilts Around Oakland
Joyce Gordon Gallery
March 3 – April 30

A continuation of a year long exhibit featuring quilts made by the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland and Oakland community reflecting the people, environment, history, business, culture and other aspects of life in Oakland.

Stitch Modern
Piedmont Center for the Arts
April 8 – May 8
Gallery hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 12-3pm

Our quilt show is almost here! Come see what our members have been up to for the past year. Many speaking events are being scheduled in conjunction with the show, so please stay tuned! For our members: the submission form is now live. You can find it here.

Sew Amazing 2016 Quilt Show
Solano County Fairgrounds, McCormack Hall
April 30 – May 1
$10 admission

This is sure to be a stunning quilt show and vendor mall presented by the Vallejo Piecemakers. Current member, Pati Fried, to be featured as guest artist.

Stitch Modern 2016 is almost here

February 24, 2016May 6, 2016Leave a comment

If you have been to two meetings in the last year, you are eligible to enter a quilt into our quilt show, Stitch Modern. This year Stitch Modern will be showing at the Piedmont Center for the Arts from April 4 to May 8th. If you wish to enter a quilt, you need to fill out the google form here, be sure to read all information carefully. Payment ($35) is required at time of quilt drop-off in order to exhibit. Read the submission form for details. All exhibitors are required to volunteer hours to support the show there are various events and/or gallery hours so be sure to mark which dates are available for you. One of our members will try to assign you to a time that works for you. If you have NOT attended at least 2 meetings in the last year but would like to see what goes on at our show, come by to help us hang our quilts on Monday night, April 4th (this will take the place of our usual meeting the last Tuesday of March). The more the merrier!

ALSO, we need photos of your Stitch Modern quilt entries ASAP so we can make fliers, postcards, and other promotional materials. Email your photos to eastbaymodern at gmail dot com – close-ups are great, even if your quilt isn’t finished we can use a photo (top only or a portion of the front). Check here to see last year’s postcard, for an idea of what we are looking for. If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments.

Meeting Minutes: January 2016

February 3, 2016Leave a comment

What a great meeting to start the year with! It was wonderful to catch up with everyone after the break we had. If you weren’t able to make it, please join us next time:

February 23rd at 6:30pm
A Verb For Keeping Warm
6328 San Pablo Ave.
Oakland, CA 94608

Events:

Ending February 21st, this is your last chance to see some quilts from Eli Leon’s collection in the show, Yo-Yo’s and Half Squares: Contemporary California Quilts, at the Oakland Museum of California. A fantastic glimpse in the art and lives of 5 quilt makers, Angie Tobias, Arbie Williams, Mattie Pickett, Rosie Lee Thompson and Sherry Byrd should not be missed!

Voices in Cloth
March 19-20
Craneway Pavilion in Richmond
Many of our members have quilts in the East Bay Heritage Quilters show, Voices in Cloth. Demonstrations will also be performed throughout the weekend, including some from our members- Stacey Sharman and Sherri Lynn Woods!

Neighborhoods Coming Together: Quilts Around Oakland
2/1 – 2/29: Oakland City Hall Rotunda Gallery
2/16: Laney College Library
Another exciting show that several of our members are participating in! This project by the members of the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland and other members of the community focuses on quilts about the people, environment, history, business, culture and other aspects of life in Oakland. Quilts will be displayed in various buildings in Oakland throughout the year.

A Visit from the Oakland Museum

January 7, 2016January 7, 2016Leave a comment

It was fun having Mia Pond from the Oakland Museum of California come out to meet with us at the meeting in November. She came to share information about the Yo-Yo’s and Half Squares show at the museum. It’s a really fun show built around the collection of Eli Leon, a Bay Area quilt collector, curator, and author. Check it out while you still can! (It closes on February 21.)

Mia was also there to feature the East Bay Modern Quilters in the OMCA’s Local Maker feature. It was really wonderful to hear fellow East Bay Modern members share why quilting and our group in particular are so meaningful to them.

For this week's #LocalMaker spotlight, we met up with the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild for one of their monthly meetings! The group meets up once a month to share progress on projects, and exchange skills, knowledge, and experience. From a member: “Quilting is such a social endeavor through history with the quilting bees, when everybody had to hand quilt everything. There’s obviously something about the quilt that when I’m sitting there hand-quilting, I feel so connected to all the women over the hundreds of years, who have been sitting there in chair, under the best brightest light that they have, at night, stitching. That’s been going on for so many hundreds of years. And when I’m knitting and crocheting, I don’t really feel that connection with people that have been knitting or crocheting. But when I’m quilting, I really think about that. There’s something about quilts that it’s not just a blanket, it’s so much more.” #MuseumOfUs #OaklandQuilts #EBMQ #makerstory #BayAreaMade

A photo posted by Oakland Museum of California (@oaklandmuseumca) on Nov 25, 2015 at 3:26pm PST

Meeting Minutes: September

October 5, 2015Leave a comment

What a busy night we had! Glad so many were able to make it.

Events around town…

We couldn’t be happier with the imminent book release from our host, Kristine Vejar at A Verb For Keeping Warm. Please join the store in celebrating her book, The Modern Natural Dyer, and their 5th anniversary in the San Pablo location on Saturday October 24th, 4-8pm. Lots of fun is being planned and I hope to see you there.

We are also excited to learn that several of our members will be showing their works in the show, Strata. This quilt art exhibit by Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) will be held at the Harrington Art Gallery in Pleasanton from November 12 – December 16, 2015 with the opening reception on Thursday, November 12, 7-9pm. Please come join us in supporting our local quilt artists!

Lastly, don’t forget to check out quilts from Eli Leon’s collection, Yo-Yo’s and Half Squares: Contemporary California Quilts, at the Oakland Museum of California this September 12, 2015 – February 21, 2016. A fantastic glimpse in the art and lives of 5 quilt makers, Angie Tobias, Arbie Williams, Mattie Pickett, Rosie Lee Thompson, and Sherry Byrd should not be missed.

In group news…

Many members expressed frustration with our google group and requested another option for sharing news within our group. We opted to give Facebook a try. Not to be confused with our open community organization page, this is a closed group requiring approval to join. Hopefully to be easier to navigate and use, this is a place where members can discuss group news and quilting without the general population involvement. Please contact us if you would like to join.

Pati is already hard at work planning quilt retreats at Walker Ranch for 2016! A beautiful location with lots of space, reasonably priced with room and board included. What more can you ask for? Tentative dates are scheduled for January and November, 2016. Please contact us if you want more information.

Chancy is currently organizing sew in nights at Sue Fox’s studio for this fall. Usually held on a Friday or Saturday night, for 10$ you can stitch ‘n bitch with the rest of us! More information to be posted on our FB group as details are finalized.

A really wonderful show and tell tonight with historic family quilts, lots of newly finished quilts and many works in progress!