The Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild is excited to welcome quilt artist and teacher Mel Beach of Mel Beach Quilts!
Lecture: Challenge Yourself! (on Zoom)
Tuesday, Sept 27 at 7:00 pm
Free for members, $10 for nonmembers
The CLTMQG meeting starts at 6:30 pm and anyone is welcome to attend our business segment and our show and tell.
Class: Slice of Improv (on Zoom)
Saturday, Oct 1 at 10:00 am EST
Length: 6 hours
$65 for members and $75 for non-members
Description: Let’s explore improvisational piecing one slice at a time! We’ll warm up
with the basic Slice and Insert technique and then introduce simple
variations that lead to exciting design opportunities. Bring your scraps and
get ready for some improvisational fun!!
Register and pay here
Materials/Supplies Needed:
- 1 yard (or more) of Background Fabric
- Solids make for great background fabrics. Small scale prints that read as a solid can work as well.
- 1 yard of background fabric is enough yardage to create the following small quilt sizes (for a scrappy background, bring 4 or more fabrics within a similar colorway):
- Baby quilt-25” square OR 25”x30” rectangle
- Table Runner 20”x35”
- OPTIONAL: You are welcome to get a jump start on precutting your background fabric into 6.5” squares
- 1 yard will yield 30 squares--Be sure to save and bring any remnants which will be put to use
- Variety of Scraps
- Raid your scrap bin for anything that is at least 1” wide. Bring scraps/strips that contrast well with your background fabric, but get along with the other scraps and have some variety for visual interest!!
- Solids, hand dyed, small scale prints, batiks, dots and/or ombres all work well
- 2.5” or 5” charm squares, jelly roll strips or random scraps of different lengths all work!!
- Don’t forget to save/bring any leftover scraps from your background fabric!!
- Sewing machine in good working order with 1⁄4” piecing foot
- Neutral piecing thread that blends with your background fabric
- Cutting supplies: rotary cutter, 6”x12” ruler, cutting mat (12” rotating mats work well)
- Iron
- Pins
- OPTIONAL:
- Small portable design board/1 yard of white/grey flannel
- Small camera/camera phone/tablet
- 6” or 6.5” square rotary ruler
- Maryellen’s Best Press—Fragrance Free
More variations and pictures of Slice of Improv quilts are posted on my website: melbeachquilts.com/gallery
Biography
Mel Beach is a San Jose, CA based quilt artist, teacher and lecturer, who breaks away from tradition by adding her own modern, beautifully textured, and colorful twists. She loves stretching her creativity through her completion of five 100-Day Projects involving dice in addition to 100+ quilt challenges.
Mel is passionate about teaching/lecturing, with a focus on quilting on a domestic machine, modern, and art quilting techniques. Starting in 2016, Mel has taught for quilt shops, guilds and quilt shows around the world including several large venues: Road to California, Pacific International Quilt Festival, Virtual Quilt Show, Online Quilt Festivals, Virtual Quilt Festival, and Craft Napa.
Her quilts have been juried into national quilt shows and traveling exhibits, published in books/magazines, earned awards/ribbons, and selected as Finalists. Mel has been featured on Quilting Arts TV (series 2500 and 2600) and The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims (episode 2112), and has published articles with Quilting Arts Magazine, Curated Quilts, and The Craft Industry Alliance. Mel Beach currently serves as President of Studio Art Quilt Associates, a global organization dedicated to promoting the art quilt.
