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 was the first on our new meeting day of the first Tuesday of the month after being asked to make the shift by our meeting venue. That worked out great for a few members who are now able to attend, though we know there are a few others who won’t be able to make the Tuesdays. We do hope to see some of the latter folks at least sometimes - we will miss you otherwise!
We also had a bunch of new faces (10 by my count), which is awesome! Some heard about us from our booth at the Nanaimo Quilt Show while some of the others have found us through Facebook or our blog. For our new members, as mentioned briefly during the meeting (at least I think I mentioned it): please make a quilted nametag for future meetings. You pick the design and size.
Other news/etc. from the meeting:
- We went around all introduced ourselves and how long we’ve been quilting and what brought us to the NMQG
- Since we had so many new people, I read a Facebook comment I made talking about the guild’s general vibe and focus; I intend to whip that up into a little introduction to the guild blog post that we can also send to prospective members who email us.
- It’s that time of year again - membership renewal time! For those of you who missed the meeting, we will be taking them in October and November as well.
- Speaking of membership… As emailed about last week, we will need a new membership co-ordinator. One of our new members expressed interest in taking this on, so hopefully that will work itself out.
- Our leader/president's new work schedule means that she won’t be able to attend most of this year’s meetings so we need a new chair/president/leader. Duties include organizing the meeting agendas, including guest speakers and demos, answering email inquiries about the guild.
- We talked a bit about this weekend’s Cowichan Exhibition with it’s annual feast of gorgeous quilts to admire. More info and hours: http://cowex.ca
- We talked about the donation quilts project, more below… also we talked about Jonanco and their quilting setup… Jonanco will be having their “Demo Days” on Saturday September 28th for anyone who wants to check them out and find out more about their facility and programs.
- We went over the general month to month plan for the coming year, more below
- There were a couple completed summer challenges (up cycling) If anyone else is still working on their upcycling challenge, no worries - bring it in whenever it’s done.
- We had a presentation about color theory and color harmonies in quilting, with loads of fabric examples
- And of course there was show & share.
YEAR AT A GLANCE: This is what we have planned so far:
- October: demo on making quilted Christmas ornaments; if anyone else has a short demo or a technique they’d like to share, let us know
- November: design exercise
- December: annual potluck and Christmas swap - this year it will be quilted or other fabric ornaments
- January: design exercises
- February/March: one month will be a trunk show, the other will be technique demos
- April: presentation or quest speaker, TBA
- May: TBA
- June: stash sale as previously discussed, we need someone to take on organizing the details; summer challenge assigned
- July: annual potluck picnic
And of course, we take August off.
There is also interest in doing a round robin starting in January and revealing in June. Is anyone up for organizing it?
DONATION QUILTS: 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. We’re now up over 35 totally finished quilts.
We had a brief discussion about whether to continue with the HSTs theme or move to maybe using more panels as centrepieces and adding borders. It was decided that we’ll open it up; if you’d like to continue making the HSTs as last year and described below, awesome. If you’ve had enough of HSTs but want to do a different pattern or do panels, that’s cool. Just make it modern and make it overall about 45” x 60” if you’re doing an entire quilt on your own, bonus points for that size plus borders to beef it up.
We also have a huge roll of batting for the donation quilts, so get in touch with us if you have a top done because there is batting to be had for it and we can cut it for you if you tell us what size your quilt top is.
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 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 blocks wide by 7 blocks high, plus borders) or twins, but 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.
SEW DAY AT JONANCO: Saturday October 5th at Jonanco, all day (9-5ish). This is for assembling and otherwise working on the donation quilts, come on out! Jonanco is at just south of Nanaimo at 2745 White Rapids Rd.
Next meeting: Tuesday, October 1st, 7pm
Upcoming quilt shows:
Maybe Island Quilt Guild: July 18, 2020, more info on their website here: http://mayneislandquiltersguild.com/quilt-show/
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 in October - happy quilting!
