Sandra Bruce

This presentation will be an overview of the evolution of "Material Matrix", a technique developed by Sandra and influenced by the painter Chuck Close.   This technique interprets a photograph using a grid.

Sandra will also discuss the colorful visual journey that defines her style of quilts, her inspiration, longarm quilting, wearable art, and much more!

More About Sandra

Sandra was born in Virginia to deaf parents who always encouraged her creativity.  Her love of quilts began when she started a quilt group with her neighbor Therese May in the early 1980's.  She moved to Grass Valley in 1990 and has been taking classes and learning new techniques ever since.  

As a commercial illustrator and letterer for over 30 years, it greatly influences her quilt work.  Sandra is also a polymer clay artist, and teaches classes and sells polymer clay buttons and jewelry.  She also enjoys making wearable art, playing pickleball, and traveling.

Sandra will be teaching a class on the "Material Matrix" technique on September 27 and 28, 2025.  Click here for details.

Check out her website at sandrabruce.com

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Registration opens for members on June 17, 2025, non-members on August 1, 2025

Add a playful twist of inspiration to your quilt designs through the use of dice!

Mel will introduce how she uses dice to challenge herself and explore new design combinations in terms of color schemes, elements of art, design principles, block orientation, and quilting motifs. Then it will be your turn to roll the dice and play with these concepts through several hands-on exercises!

This class is suitable for all levels of creative quilters.

SUPPLIES LIST

Cancellation allowed until August 14, 2025

Mel will be the guest speaker at the general meeting to be held in the evening of the same day as this class.  Visit the event page for more information about Mel and her presentation "Quilting Fun: Innovate and Create through Comedy Improv." 

Mel Beach

Many of the Fortune 500 companies located in Silicon Valley turn to comedy improv workshops to empower their employees and cultivate skills essential to innovation:  thinking fast on your feet, creative problem solving, taking risks, overcoming failure, active listening, and teamwork. 

Experience first-hand how improvisational games can advance your own creative practices and professional pursuits in this FUN, SAFE, and HIGHLY INTERACTIVE session.  Say YES! AND…to boosting your creativity, confidence, and communication through comedy improv!

A few GQCCC members can attest to the fun of this activity from their experience at the 2019 Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) meeting in 2019!

More About Mel

Mel Beach is an award-winning fiber/mixed-media artist based in San Jose who loves to create through play each and every day.  Mel thrives on stretching her creativity through more than one hundred quilt challenges and completing seven 100-Day Projects since 2020, each inspired by daily dice rolling.

Mel’s fiber art has been juried into prestigious art venues and traveling exhibitions, while earning top awards and honors along the way.  Mel and her artwork have been featured on The Quilt Show , Quilting Arts TV, popular quilting podcasts, and published in several quilting books and magazines.

Mel was GQCCC's Featured Artist at our 2022 quilt show.

Mel will be teaching the class "Design by Dice!" in the afternoon of the same day as this general meeting on August 15, 2025.

Check out her website at MelBeachQuilts.com

Registration opens on July 22, 2025

By request, Kris is back with another mini-landscape scene to create using a layered topstitching technique!  You have your choice of two different scenes: Tuscan Hills or Beach Music.

Each scene is quick and easy to make: no templates are required and uses no-fuss rotary cutting and topstitched edges techniques.  You can personalize your landscape by adding collage details such as a stucco villa, cypress trees, and vineyard details (for Tuscan Hills) and lace, yarn, beads, and charms for (Beach Music.) 

Everyone will receive a kit with the fabrics needed for the basic scene. You are welcome to bring your own fabrics and embellishments as well.  The workshop will focus on piecing the landscape and learning the technique with an eye towards topstitching to your heart's content. The piece will measure approximately 8" x 12" without borders.

This workshop is suitable for sewists of all levels, but you should be familiar with your machine, able to sew a 1/8" seam, and be comfortable sewing with other than just a straight stitch.

Doors open at 9:30 for setup, workshop starts at 10:00 am.

A light lunch will be provided – bring your own beverages. 

SUPPLIES LIST

Cancellation allowed until September 6, 2025.

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Registration opens for members on June 29, 2025, non-members on August 13, 2025

Sandra's technique, "Material Matrix", is inspired by the painter, Chuck Close.  It uses a gridded photograph and interprets each 2-inch square into fabric, using piecing to achieve the effect.

This two-day class will teach her technique, as well as what makes a good photo to use, color and value, curved-piecing, and how to grid your own photo. Everyone in the class will work on the same "Wake Up Cup" project. 

For an additional $3.00, Sandra will provide a template and handouts so the piece can be finished at home with confidence.  This can be purchased directly from Sandra at the class.

Sandra will be speaking at the general meeting on August 18, 2025.

Cancellation allowed until August 26, 2025.

Registration opens on August 19, 2025

In this fun workshop, you will learn to create a Froebel Star (Fröbelstern in German) in a traditional way, from paper, string, wax, and glitter. Though it is sometimes called a Moravian Star, that term refers to a general category of geometrical shapes. The 16-tipped form of part origami, part weaving is specifically called a Froebel Star. It is also called an Advent star, Danish star, German star, Nordic star, Pennsylvanian star, Polish star, Swedish star, or Christmas star, depending on where you look.

This workshop is suitable for anyone who can use scissors!

Fee does not include supplies.  Registrants will be required to purchase a supply kit for $10, payable directly to the instructor on the day of the class.

Doors open at 9:30 for setup, workshop starts at 10:00 am.

SUPPLIES LIST

Cancellation allowed until October 4, 2025.

Julia McLeod

Join us for an exploration of the world of quilts that Julia calls "Not Cottons." 

Julia's presentation will feature antique and modern quilts made of wool, silk, polyester and more. She will bring along examples her own work made with neckties, saris, kimonos and other unusual, "not cotton" textiles.

More About Julia

Julia McLeod is a quilt maker living and working in the San Francisco Bay area. She specializes in making quilts from rescued textiles, particularly silks.  Neckties, saris, kimono and furnishing fabrics all find their way into her quilts.

Born and raised in England, Julia worked as a menswear textile designer in the woolen and worsted mills of Yorkshire and Scotland, and later for a company on Savile Row, in the heart of London’s bespoke tailoring industry. She moved to New York City in the early 1990’s, and America has been her home ever since. Julia enjoys lecturing and teaching on the subject of quiltingmaking with unusual and reclaimed textiles. Her book "Patchwork Luxe" is published by C&T Publishing.

Check out her website at JuliaMcLeodQuilts.com

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Registration opens on September 16, 2025

Kris is back for the third consecutive year to lead the Mystery Quilt workshop! This year's project will be made with five fabrics, each measuring 1-yard. The pieced top will come out to 54” x 64” with a border.

This pattern does not have curves, Y-seams, applique, or paper piecing. It can be made in a one-day session, so it is not an intricate pattern. The challenge is in taking the leap of sewing without having the visual in advance. 

It is recommended to have a light, a medium, and a dark fabric, and two multi-colored, medium-to-large print fabrics. The light fabric is considered your background. It is best to not use directional fabrics in a Mystery Quilt, since you have no idea which direction they will turn, but if that doesn’t bother you, use whatever you would like!

This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience.

A light lunch will be provided – bring your own beverages. 

Doors open at 9:30 for setup, workshop starts at 10:00 am.

Luke Haynes

Luke talks about his work in the context of art and architecture. His studies were in contemporary art and modern architecture and both influenced how he understands quilting. He has made over 350 quilts and has shown them across the world.

In this presentation Luke will show slides on how the work is made and how the process is conceived through the lens of painting and building. The works he will show span from simple variations of traditional quilts to entire houses covered in fabric. Quilts are geometry made physical.

More About Luke

Luke  was born and raised across the American South, receiving formal training in art and architecture at Cooper Union in New York. A chance encounter with a box of fabric remnants sparked his imagination, leading to his first quilt which measured 7’x10’. As he continued to experiment, he created a system to piece manageable parts into a larger whole, applying a modern design sense to a familiar process. He uses reclaimed materials from the communities he works with in order to speak with the textile language of each region. 

Watch a video from the LA Times about Luke.

Check out his website at luke.art

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

NOTE:  This general meeting is on a TUESDAY!

Christina Cameli

Christina shares the biggest "aha!" moments she's had in her years as a quilter, teacher, and pattern and fabric designer.

More About Christina

Christina has been sewing since she was a child. In 2003 she fell in love with quilting. Since then she has authored five quilting books, filmed multiple online classes and designed quilt patterns and fabric. She is also a nurse-midwife, a mom and a paddle boarder. 

Christina lives in Portland, Oregon with her blended family, a rescue lab mix and a ton of houseplants.

Check out her website at christinacameli.com

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

NOTE:  This general meeting is on a TUESDAY! 

Ellen Lindner

What do 750 pins, window screening, and paint have in common?  They’ve all been used by Ellen Lindner in creative ways as she’s made art quilts.  Join her in an amusing accounting of some of the wacky things she’s done over the years, some of them successful and some of them resulting in “rough drafts.”  She’ll share with you why even the unsuccessful ones are useful and why she fearlessly embraces experimentation.

More About Ellen

A former flight instructor, Ellen didn’t try her hand at art until her forties. After learning the basics, she quickly began to experiment and over the course of years developed her own fabric collage technique. More recently, Ellen has been dyeing all her own fabric and working abstractly. She finds abstract design to be very challenging, which is exactly why she likes it.

She often participates in juried shows and has won quite a few awards throughout the country.

Now using her teaching skills at a lower altitude, she teaches online, as well as via her episodes on Quilting Arts TV (PBS) and “The Quilt Show” online. Ellen has also written two eBooks and several articles.

Check out her website at adventurequilter.com

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.

Please register for if you would like to attend this meeting.  You will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link. You will also receive an email with the meeting agenda a couple days before the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the Recording Secretary via the Contact form.