Making it Modern...

One of my favorite things about our quilt guild is the opportunity to delve in and learn more about every aspect of quilting. We were fortunate to have two very talented representatives from The Modern Quilt Guild visit to tell us more about this current direction in quilting. Lora Douglas from The Modern Quilt Guild of Gainesville and Linda Hungerford, from The Villages and Central Florida Modern Quilt Guild, gave an in-depth power-point presentation followed by a show-and-tell of some of their quilts. You can click on their names to visit each of their blogs. The piece shown above is the back of one of Linda's quilts. Lively, yes? And it features a few leftover blocks from the front, shown below. One very interesting feature of their presentation was a timeline with photos illustrating the growth of the Modern Quilt trend over the past decade or so. We also learned about the elements that define the Modern Quilt style. Lora has written more on this topic on her blog.

Improvisational curves behind the lattice-like grid give this quilt a depth of perspective. Both presenters noted that they share a goal of working toward a more relaxed approach to free-piecing. And since the Modern Quilt Guild had its origins in online communities, it was quite in keeping with the tradition that these two quilters collaborated on their presentation via computer. This was only the second or third time they had met face-to-face! And their program was seamless (pardon the pun)!

Lora described her progress in sewing Modern Quilts by showing us three different versions of this original design she entered in a quilt magazine contest (where it earned second place). Her first two quilts looked too traditional to her, and she felt one lacked contrast. But she persevered and this graphic quilt was her final version. You can see the pile of Modern Quilt books on the table. Linda and Lora provided a comprehensive book, blog, and website list for us as well. What an enjoyable and enlightening evening!