On Jan. 18, the New Millennium Quilters Guild (NMQG) welcomed guest speaker Peter Byrne from Toronto.
Byrne is a published, international award-winning modern quilter and teacher, with a deep passion for innovation and design.
After 25 years working as a stylist and salon owner, Byrne retired, which gave him time to explore new creative outlets. He purchased a sewing machine in 2009 and soon his passion for quilting became his new community. In 2017, he joined the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild to expand his quilting experience and in 2018 started teaching quilting at a sewing school in Toronto.
Byrne’s presentation “Behind the Scenes” highlighted his quilting journey. In QuiltCon 2020, held in Austin, Texas, Byrne won two of the top awards for his quilts Starring You and Cityscape and was the first man to win Best in Show. QuiltCon is the largest modern quilt show in the world.
Byrne shared an in-depth look at many of his quilts, explaining his techniques such as “overlay quilting” and “hover quilting.” In 2019, he developed a new approach to raw edge appliqué that is absent of fusible web. This innovative technique produces not only a beautiful, controlled, frayed edge, but also the illusion that your quilt is hovering above the quilt top. There are four layers to a hover quilt: backing, batting and the quilt top with the fourth layer being everything that is appliquéd down onto the quilt sandwich.
In Byrne’s most viewed quilt Modern Triangle, he used several colours of thread and a simple colour pallet of three colours: yellow, green and blue; and views triangles to be a fun design as one can easily turn them into pyramids or diamonds, or a combination of both.
A new book for the guild library is Christmas at Buttermilk Basin by Stacy West, which features 19 patterns for mini-quilts and much more.
The Stashbusters group shared their favourite book/magazine and discussed how every fabric in your stash tells a story. The books/magazines were listed on the members-only Facebook page for future reference. A Valentine’s theme project will be the feature for the next meeting.
The Wool Appliqué group welcomed two new wool appliqué enthusiasts; one from the area and the other from Saskatchewan. Zoom has become such a great asset to our lives. The group learned some easy tricks to ensure stitches are the same size and evenly spaced. Next month’s project is a Penny Mat.
The Historical group viewed a video about quilt fabric quality and discussed washing fabric, thread counts, fabric finishes and learned how to determine the right side of batiks.
Special Interests have become a very popular element in the guild. A new interest group to start soon will be Modern Quilting.
Members continue to work on the Disappearing Pinwheel block, Butterfly Bush block and Connie’s Chopstick block for outreach projects.
Members received their next instalment of the mystery quilt challenge called Pieceful Haven. The big reveal will take place later in the year.
New members are always welcome; if you’re interested please contact newmillenniumquiltersguild@gmail.com.
