Modern Quilting and The CMQG: May Guild Meeting Recap

(Thanks to Sarah Shulman for writing this re-cap for us!)

Quilt by Debbie P.

Our May meeting, Conversations about Modern Quilting and the CMQG, proved why this guild is such a great find! We spent the afternoon talking, sharing, laughing, and generally getting to know one another and our guild a little better. After announcements and business, we broke into small discussion groups to answer some questions about modern quilting and the CMQG. For those of you who weren’t able to come, give some thought to how you would answer these questions:

• What is Modern Quilting?
• Why the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild? Why the Modern Quilt Guild?
• How do you want to grow as a modern quilter this year?
• How can the guild help you grow as a modern quilter this year?
• Hopes and dreams, what do you see for the future of this modern guild?

The groups also shared their first or early quilts, and recent finishes or works in progress. It was so interesting to see how we've changed, learned, and grown as quilters. It was quite an impressive display of quilts! There was also a little ice breaker, three truths and a lie, that we’ll have to share at the next meeting as we ran out of time!

Then we came together in a large group to share responses. Not surprisingly, there were common threads running through the group’s answers.

Modern quilting was described as freedom, new attitude and aesthetic, fresh, open. We think of improvisation, experimentation, minimalism, negative space, reinterpreting traditional, modern fabrics and colors as some of the characteristics of modern quilts.

Overwhelmingly we come to the CMQG for a sense of community. Most important to us are friendships, personal connections, and informality. We love the diversity of styles, backgrounds, skills, and ages of our members. We come to meetings for inspiration, creativity, and sharing of ideas and talents. We feel part of a larger community with the MQG, and want to support the modern quilt movement.

Personally, we want to grow as a modern quilter by getting out of our comfort zone, trying new things, being more creative, learning new techniques and skills, IMPROV! We want to use up our fabric (so we can buy more?) and make stuff and finish it!

We look to the CMQG for continued inspiration, support, and motivation to grow as quilters this year. As in past years, we like show and tell, speakers, workshops and demo days to learn new things, challenges and swaps, and sewing days. We grow just by being with one another.

For the future we want to continue to build on what we have. We’d like to maintain community and friendships, keep up the inspiration, deal with growth while maintaining intimacy, continue providing the variety of meeting content and activities, keep an open mind to new ideas, and further explore joining the Modern Quilt Guild.

We also had a discussion about the new changes being rolled out by the national Modern Quilt Guild. Jen, our president, shared the benefits of joining, and what questions we still have before we can make a decision. We really appreciate everyone’s opinion and are glad our members are involved with both the local and national level of the Modern Guild. This topic is a blog post on its own, and since we are still getting information from the MQG we will post about it in the near future. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to email any of the board members. We can be found on Big Tent in the ‘about’ section, and our addresses are also in the ‘members’ section.

Thanks to all our members who opened up to one another in this conversation. Without a doubt, we are a fabulous group of modern quilters!