Notions: Happy Birthday MQG!

Notions: Happy Birthday, MQG!

At the Oct. 3 meeting of the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild, (the first MQG formed) members celebrated the guild's two-year anniversary by exchanging projects made from a scrap challenge.

Instant belonging. Immediate understanding. Friends everywhere.

That’s how Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, Chicago, sums up the effects and events of two years ago, when she and fellow bloggers and quilters Elizabeth Hartman, Alissa Haight Carlton and Latifah Saafir created the Modern Quilt Guild, an online and in-person guild network.

“Before, I didn’t even have another friend who sewed. After the MQG happened, I have friends all over the country that sew, that quilt, that I can talk about aesthetics with,” says Jacquie. “We can argue back and forth, we can talk about things together. It’s opened up a whole world of people.”

We know how she feels.

Three of our staff here at Generation Q also hold memberships in their local MQG. We’ve experienced firsthand the satisfaction and confirmation that come from spending time with other people who get as excited as we do about the modern vibe in quilty/stitchy/crafty projects. More people who love the art of needle-ness are always a good thing, we say, especially if they aren’t all that hung up on perfect points, symmetry and matchy-matchy color palettes.

To say that the MQG has had viral growth is a humongous understatement: Alissa estimates that the 120 chapters include between 3,000 to 4,000 members. There are chapters in almost 100 cities in 39 states, and in nine foreign countries, including Australia, Canada and parts of Europe. The newest chapter is in India.

Part of why this group has been so successful is it has given a defined, out-there platform for the teeming creativity and sharing that has happily—but invisibly—existed in the blogosphere for several years.

Members of the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild settle in for the night's activities at the Oct. 3 meeting. The guild meets at Sew Modern, a modern-centered fabric shop in L.A.'s Westside.

“I guess I think that somehow us organizing in an in-person setting like this has really struck a chord with people who wanted to join and be noticed and recognized as a group,” Alissa says. “We of course in no way anticipated that two years ago, with our first meeting and 20 people, that we’d grow to this.”

“When we first started doing Stash Books, we had to search for those (modern) authors,” Amy says. “Now we have so many coming to us that we have to decide how many do we want per season? Does it make sense to shift more into that direction because those books sell so well?”

Amy says that she’s learning that those shop owners who are catering to the modern tastes in fabric and media are seeing newer quilters shopping, both online and at brick-and-mortar shops.

“My sense is that the shop owners who are embracing the modern quilter, the younger quilter, are seeing the benefit of it,” she says.

And sure, we who love modern have been pretty excited to see the MQG blossom, but we’re not alone. The quilting industry at large, already a little nervous at the documented “graying” of the craft, has been looking for that new (read: younger) stitcher on the horizon. The MQG has definitely tapped that youthful vein, giving q-businesses at least a slight sigh of relief. But what really works for us is while the median age might be far younger than what we see in the traditional quilt world, it’s not exclusive to the under-30 set. Many more mature quilters are stopping and staying at meetings and visiting modern blogs. It’s cross-pollination of the best kind, we say.

Heck, Generation Q exists because the modern market segment craves the enrichment and enjoyment that comes from a coordinated “peek” at this quilty/stitchy lifestyle, written and presented by people who are also living the same lifestyle.

So, how might the quilting landscape continue to change, as the MQG celebrates its second anniversary?

It means more acceptance and attention, which are like growth hormones for a movement that is rapidly getting too big to ascribe to one group, one region or one source.

And it means “arrival,” particularly on a national stage. The mama of quilt shows, Quilts Inc., has tapped MQG founders to help jury a special exhibit in 2012 on modern quilting. Modern quilters aren’t wallflowers at the Big Dance anymore.

“I really feel like our show is probably going to be, for those quilters who don’t use the mouse (computer), the show that will be the first time they will know we exist,” Alissa says.

As an industry looking on, the enthusiasm is exciting, Amy says.

“It’s so much fun to see people get excited about something and then to have such a fresh and different approach about design aesthetic. It’s very cool,” she says.

Shrink it down, though, to the level where it matters most: the individual quilter or sewist, who seeks creative nirvana through fabric and thread. Modern matters, and so do they.

Says Jacquie Gering: “I think that’s what the MQG has done for a whole lot of people. We’re getting our itches scratched.”