{"id":1557,"date":"2012-06-27T09:06:29","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T14:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2012-06-28T08:03:25","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T13:03:25","slug":"having-a-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1557","title":{"rendered":"Having a Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

The monthly newsletter from the Contemporary Quilt Group, CQG,\u00a0a subgroup of the West Australian Quilters’ Association WAQA, just\u00a0arrived in my inbox.\u00a0 I am a very\u00a0remote member of both,\u00a0\u00a0(still hoping to resume residence in Aus)- and these e-letters keep me abreast with what’s happening back\u00a0there.\u00a0 Recently\u00a0 a group\u00a0of The Modern Quilt Guild\u00a0 http:\/\/themodernquiltguild.com\/<\/a> formed in Perth,\u00a0and apparently at a recent CQG meeting someone suggested that the CQG should to ”\u00a0have a go” at that style of quiltmaking, and quoting from the newsletter this was\u00a0 “received entusiastically.\u00a0Many members wish to try modern quilt techniques that include using traditional blocks, but in a contemporary way”\u00a0<\/em><\/span> which\u00a0they’ll be exploring\u00a0at a future meeting.\u00a0 Excuse me CQG girls – absolutely nothing has ever stopped any of you from experimenting with irregular piecing or using\u00a0traditional\u00a0 design characteristics including blocks in a ‘new’ way – and nothing has stopped you taking a fresh look at colour, using whatever fabrics you wish, modern or not<\/em><\/span> –\u00a0and nothing’s\u00a0prevented you from personally focusing on the\u00a0more functional bed covering role of what we all do.<\/p>\n

What is happening is that this movement is attracting attention from\u00a0many younger and some older people who have not previously been involved making quilts, and\u00a0who would prefer generally to make quilts for practical purposes. These people are not phased by style and organisational customs or rules\u00a0that have grown up around the whole craft of quilting\u00a0over the past 2-3 decades.\u00a0 The dreaded ‘quilt police’ have been sidelined, and the emphasis is on practicality plus fun, networking and pleasure in accomplishment.\u00a0 The time taken to make a functional attractive bed quilt is being slashed as modern designs requiring less piecing and more plain non-patterned areas are favoured.<\/p>\n

If you go through this link you’ll find a very fresh looking website, and scrolling down you find a description of the guild’s objectives\u00a0and the characterisics of their aproach.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0 centred on using modern communications – you’ll find them on facebook and twitter etc – and there are\u00a0lots of online tutorials.\u00a0 Next year the first modern quilt guild festival\/conference will be held, and it sounds\u00a0remarkably like the giant Houston quilt festival; and in fact, the whole movement is starting to sound like a parallel world of\u00a0The Quilting Industry\u00a0as many of us now know it.\u00a0 Books, tutorials and classes, dedicated magazines, particular styles of\u00a0fabrics that are favoured in\u00a0their popular designs… the list goes on.\u00a0\u00a0Like many\u00a0who have been quiltmaking for eons I applaud this fresh approach, and know that\u00a0new exponents of the craft will (a) lower the average age of quiltmakers generally and (b) bring fresh ideas to the craft.\u00a0 At the same time I’m a bit bemused at the breathless ‘we’re different!” \u00a0tone here, <\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span>even\u00a0<\/em>as I count myself as one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The monthly newsletter from the Contemporary Quilt Group, CQG,\u00a0a subgroup of the West Australian Quilters’ Association WAQA, just\u00a0arrived in my inbox.\u00a0 I am a very\u00a0remote member of both,\u00a0\u00a0(still hoping to resume residence in Aus)- and these e-letters keep me abreast with what’s happening back\u00a0there.\u00a0 Recently\u00a0 a group\u00a0of The Modern Quilt Guild\u00a0 http:\/\/themodernquiltguild.com\/ formed in Perth,\u00a0and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,174,188,184,186],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-creativity","tag-cyclical-nature-of-fashion","tag-modern","tag-strip-patterns","tag-wandering-strip-piecing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-p7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1579,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}