Hello everyone, here's your summary of what happened at this month’s meeting for everyone who wasn’t able to attend (and to jog memories for those who did).
This meeting, we did some brainstorming for what we'd all would like us to focus on next year/season (Sept to June). For those of you who missed the meeting, no worries: we'll be emailing out questionnaires.
Some of the main points from the in-meeting brainstorming:
- Everyone loves show and share (of course), but people also mentioned having enjoyed past trunk shows and guest speakers and wanting more of those. The design exercises and demos were also popular.
- Rather than the frequentmini challenges we had this past fall, the preference is to just have one challenge a year over the summer.
- People would love to do a round robin again.
- We’d like to set up some workshops for the coming year. In particular, there was some interest in doing a bag workshop, as well as interest in an improv piecing workshop and one on rules (both for use on the machines when quilting and different ones for templates and cutting, etc.)
- Sew-ins will likely be cancelled next year, save for a couple of one-day quilting bees at Jonanco for the donation quilts. We’ve had to cancel 3 out of 5 library sew-ins this year due to insufficient signups. As the guild grows, it’s something we can revisit.
- Block lottery/block of the month was a mixed bag. If we are to continue doing it, we will need someone to step up to co-ordinate it.
- For now, we’ll put off doing the stash sale as there’s only a couple members who want to sell stash. As our numbers grow, or maybe next year, it’s an idea we’ll revisit.
- There was also discussion around the donation quilts and timelines of when to donate the quilts we already have done. So far there are 25 completed quilts and a bunch of other kits out being worked on.
- We got talking about gear we all have and floated the idea of maybe making a list of who has what that they maybe don’t use a ton and would be willing to lend out to other guild members. Kinda like a tool library.
Of course, we look forward to hearing from the rest of our members who weren’t able to be at the meeting. Ditto if you had other ideas after the meeting. Like I said, questionnaires will be coming, so do tell us what you'd like out of the guild for the coming year.
Nanaimo quilt show next month: We will have a booth in the merchant mall at the Nanaimo guild’s quilt show next month. It would be great if people could pop in and volunteer to be at the booth for a couple hours to help spread the word about our guild. We’ll send out a sign up sheet soon - set up is Thursday June 6th and the show is Friday June 7th and Saturday June 8th.
There should be special nametags for those volunteering at the booth so they can get into the show for free.
Also, we’ll be hanging up a few of our quilts. We already have a couple, but it would be great to have a couple more. Ideally the quilts will have hanging sleeves, but if not, we can use binder clips to hang them. Please let us know if you’d like to lend us a quilt for the show along with its rough dimensions so we can plan the space.
Other news/etc. from the meeting:
- A couple of our members' new studio, Sew It Begins, will have its official opening on Saturday May 25th in the afternoon. The shop is on Nicol Street in the same building as Iron Oxide Art Supplies.
- VIU’s textile arts class begins this Monday May 6th. The class is ARTI 103, I think, and there may be a spot or two left if you’re interested. More info: https://campusevents.viu.ca/arti-103-introduction-textiles-and-textile-design
- One of our members brought in 500+ HSTs for the donation quilts and we split them up into groups of 35 (i.e., enough for one quilt 5 squares by 7 squares) and took them home to square up (and some of us will sew our bundles together as well).
- And of course there was show & share:
NEXT SEW-IN: Saturday May 25th from 10-4 at the Nanaimo North library on Hammond Bay Road, please email us to sign up for it by May 22nd beforehand. If we don’t have enough people signed up, we will have to cancel it. Please do come if you’re able to, it’ll be the last one for a while.
Donation quilt HSTs general info: As we discussed in previous meetings, we have an ongoing project to make half square triangles for quilts to be donated to kids in foster care.
If you missed the specs on the HSTs: we’re going for a scrappy sort of look, but big and modern. Half square triangle blocks should be trimmed to 8.5 inches, with one side lighter and the other darker (relative is OK, like pink against white), and we also discussed having one side be a solid (or a subtle print that reads as a solid) and the other a print. The target age is the slightly older kids and especially teens, say 6-16, as there tends to already be a lot of donations aimed at the really little kids. Final quilt sizes will be lap size, 5 squares by 7 squares, or slightly larger. You can also just keep feeding us HSTs and we’ll build the quilts later on. As this is an ongoing project, just make ‘em as you can and bring ‘em – great way to work through your stash.
July picnic: Our annual potluck picnic will be held as usual at Matteo Sutton Park in downtown Nanaimo (the big park with the parking lot at the corner of Comox and Terminal where we’ve had it before). The date is July 3rd and as usual, we’ll start a bit earlier than our normal meetings, so 6:30pm.
Next meeting: Wednesday, June 5, 7pm
Upcoming quilt shows:
Island Quilters (the traditional guild here in Nanaimo): June 7-8, more info in the members section of http://www.islandquilters.ca/index.htm
Upcoming retreats:
Stitch, Sip & Splash: presented by Troll Brothers Quilt Designs - July 12-14, 2019 in Shawnigan Lake. More info: https://trollbrothersquiltdesigns.com/collections/stitch-sip-splash-quilt-retreat-2019
Links for our guild:
Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/258471184565888/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nanaimomqg/
Blog: http://nanaimomqg.blogspot.com
See you at the June meeting - happy quilting!
