Kitty Oliver

Have you wondered what criteria a professional quilt judge uses when evaluating a quilt?  Kitty will present how she went from quilt maker to quilt judge, and what makes for an award-winning quilt.

More About Kitty

Kitty has been a quilter for over 25 years. She has won numerous honors and ribbons.  Kitty creates her own patterns and designs, and has a deep appreciation for the creative process. 

In addition to teaching quilting technique classes and giving lectures, she created the California Sesquicentennial Children’s Quilt Program.  This program brought information on quilting and California history to thousands of school children

As a successful graduate of the West Coast Quilt Judging Academy she has become a very busy quilt judge.  Kitty loves the opportunity to encourage and challenge quilters at all levels, through meaningful and thoughtful comments.

Donation Sew-In

Join us for an evening of sewing for charity!

Completed projects will be distributed to our various outreach organizations.

Come early to set up and enjoy a sampling of salads brought by fellow stitchers.  Indicate the salad you intend to bring to share when you register, or contact Cynthia Allen.

Doors open at 5:00 PM for set-up

Salad bar from 5:15 to 6:00 PM

Sewing from 6:00 to 9:00 PM

Kits with fabric for the projects will be provided.

Please bring the following supplies:

ATTENTION NON-MEMBERS!

The visitor's fee has been waived for this event.  We hope you will consider helping out for a good cause and meeting our members.

Estrella Shoka

In 2023, Estrella's alma mater, Wellesley College, awarded her a fellowship to spend 3 1/2 months in Chile studying arpilleras and their role in social justice.

Arpilleras are wall hanging-sized textiles where the maker (the arpillerista) uses piecing, appliqué and embroidery to create an image or a scene on a foundation of burlap.  Traditional arpilleras could depict a village market or a seashore excursion.  Estrella’s focus, however, was on the arpilleras that portrayed the brutal conditions under the Pinochet dictatorship and on the arpilleristas who through their “humble” craft helped draw international attention to Chile and helped end the dictatorship. 

In her presentation, she will share both her experience and the stories of some of these courageous arpilleristas and what they and their families endured. Although the overarching theme is one of resilience and empowerment, some people may find the content difficult. 

More About Estrella

Estrella is an active member of GQCCC.  She has had a lifelong interest in crafts that started with attending knitting and crochet classes with her mother during her childhood on the East Coast.  Her quilting journey began about 20 years ago, when her children were still young and she was looking for a creative outlet.  She has since made dozens of items, ranging from quilts to bags to clothing, in many different styles from traditional to modern. 

Although she considers herself to be more of a crafter than an artist, she is proud that her "Dinner Plate Dahlia” was selected to be shown in the Pacific International Quilt Festival in 2021.  More recently, her interest has expanded from traditional piecing and bed-sized quilts to smaller scale projects, such as landscapes and portraits that involve different textures and/or the use of media such as ink.

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

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

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

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

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

NOTE:  This general meeting is on a TUESDAY! 

Ellen Linder

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