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December 5, 2023

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2023, announcements, charity, field trip, guild business, meeting recaps, MQG, Programs, quilt showcase, Uncategorized

October 2023 NJMQG Meeting Recap

Hello and welcome to the October recap. This month we met over Zoom. We had 41 people joining us, including some new friends, Cecila, Arlene and Nina. Thanks for joining us, and hope to see you soon!

This month we started our meeting off with our usual guild business. Annette gave us a treasurer’s report, which as always, can be found in the member’s only section of the website.

Last month we hosted our very first Quilt Showcase, and it was just so wonderful! We had about 200 people come to see the show and we sold our MQG charity quilt! The money from that sale will be donated to Oasis Haven and Rachel Coalition. We want to thank everyone who helped pull it together, with a special thanks to the showcase committee and and extra special shout out to our president Ann, who took the reigns and totally went for it. We are looking forward to our next one, in 2025.

Some announcements were next. We took a poll about our 2024 meeting schedule. Based off the results, we will have 8 meetings in person and 4 virtually. When meeting in person we will also be going to a new location. We will be letting everyone know all those details soon!

Mid Atlantic Mod Retreat will be April 18-21 and our 10 lucky early registrants have gotten in. Regular registration has also opened and there is a waitlist if you’d like to get on it.

We have some committee updates. Did you know we have a library? Books and rulers are available for borrowing. Caroline Hayes will be our new guild librarian. We are also looking for a new head to our charity committee. Please reach out if you are interested in helping out.

At our September meeting we started working on our MQG Community Quilt. Since then we have the top and back completed and Carol M will be quilting it. Looking forward to seeing that come together!

Programs is working hard behind the scenes to bring us some fun and exciting things in the new year. Before the new year starts, though, we had a field trip to Cultured Expressions for a workshop with Lisa Shepard Stewart.

November 4, we are celebrating International Scrap Sorting Day with the MQG. Let’s get organized!!

In November we have our meeting on the 16th , at 7, over Zoom. December we will have our holiday party on December 2 from 11-3 at the Community Church of Cedar Grove. Jeanine is leading the planning on this, but any help is welcome, reach out to her at vicepresident at njmqg dot com. For January we have a lecture and workshop scheduled with Libs Elliot. If you don’t know her, you should really check her stuff out. Libs will be joining our January 18 meeting over Zoom to give us a lecture. Then keep your calendar open for January 20, for a workshop over Zoom for the Bloem quilt.

We have some other things in the works and are looking forward to sharing more with you soon!

We kept it short this month! see you in November!

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NJMQG Secretary

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March 29, 2023

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2023, guild business, meeting recaps, membership, MQG, Open Sew, Programs, swaps, Uncategorized, volunteer

March 2023 Guild Meeting Recap

Happy Spring! We were very excited to be able to meet in person for our meeting AND open sew this month. It feels so great to be seeing each other again and be able to meet some of our newer members face to face. Don’t get us wrong, Zoom is an amazing resource to have and to use, but with such a tactile thing as quilting, being face to face with each other and the quilts is just so inspiring and invigorating. It was lovely to be able to chat and sew with and brag on our members. We had 39 members joining us. A few lovely new friends introduced themselves to us. MaryAnne, Mindy, Ginny and Cindy it was great to meet you and hear a little bit about your quilting history.

We had some guild business to go over. We are wrapping up our renewals and have all the info to be sent in to the MQG. That doesn’t mean you can’t still sign up, but more for the ‘business-y’ side of stuff. You should be able to access all the available resources on the MQG website, if not, let us know. As part of some housekeeping, we are doing a review of our bylaws. We had a change suggested on some wording for one section that was voted on and approved by all present. If anyone has any changes or anything they’d like to discuss, the board is always here.

Quiltcon was our next topic of discussion. For the members who did not go, we had a very fun Open Sew over Zoom. And while we were Zooming it up, we had a few members there representing us well! Congrats again to Jackie L, Lenny, Melanie T, Liz K, Caroline M, Miguel, and Betsy V for having quilts shown. Aleeda C, who is one of the NJMQG’s founders was inspiring to watch as she slipped easily into her role as MQG president. We had our Community quilt available to look at and we are working on the plans for what to do with it next.

The NJMQG is in the early planning stages of having a quilt show!! We are really excited to finally be able to put on a show, after talking about it since our early years, but we need your help! We are looking for as many hands as we can for help in putting on a show. Reach out to Ann if you are interested in helping.

We had a quick trivia question and Debby C was the winner! (Which company introduced the electric sewing machine in 1889?)

We couldn’t go through the day without acknowledging our fearless leader who was celebrating a birthday the next day. Happy birthday Rachel!!

As we slowly roll towards the middle of the year, we are preparing for the next Board Election. We are looking for a new president and co-program person, at least, but if you are feeling inspired to volunteer for another position, there are ways to make it work. Right now only the treasurer spot is only truly not up for election. We are asking for members to nominate themselves or suggest someone else who they think may be good at and interested being a part of the board. We are looking for some members to be part of a committee to help be a liaison and to host the election, as well. Please reach out to any board member if you have any questions or suggestions. If you’d like to sit in on a board meeting to check it out, we can do that too! You know the saying, many hands…

Another raffle prize and Mary K was the lucky winner!

Programs updates were next. We will be having Lisa Stewart Shepard of Cultured Expressions do a lecture for us at our April 20 guild meeting over Zoom. There is a half day workshop on April 23 from 1-5 with Lisa to learn a cool corded log cabin technique.

On May 20, Kelly C has once again offered to host an afternoon of tie dying!

Sam came up and showed us some examples of just a fraction of the many Schlep bags she has made before showing us how it’s done during the open sew.

The last prize for the closest answer goes to…Lenny! (Where did the thimble originate?)

Before our break, where we enjoyed tea and goodies, we had some members take part in a needle minder swap.

We ended our official meeting with show and tell and then got all set up for our open sew!

Lenny- first of 3 quilts finished 2 weeks with Nancy Crow

Caroline- friend made from mom’s snowball quilt

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! Look forward to our April meeting. Thursday April 20 at 7:15 over Zoom. As always, reach out with any questions, concerns, or anything! Don’t forget, you can always let us know of any classes, shows, news you hear so we can share it with our members, too! Thanks for reading!

-A

P.S. The answers were Singer and Holland

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NJMQG Secretary

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February 27, 2023

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2023, guild business, meeting recaps, membership, MQG, Open Sew, QuiltCon, Sew-In

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February 2023 Guild Meeting

Hello quilty friends! We had our monthly meeting over Zoom on February 15. As always it was a lot of fun. We had 38 members joining us, including a few new members- Amanda H, Ginny M, Mindy M. Welcome! After a little bit of technical difficulties (Betsy F powered through and persevered!! Don’t give up, you got this!) our slide show got started.

We started with a little bit of business. The guild renewals are still in the grace period until the end of March, but for anyone who has renewed or signed up should have received the welcome letter including info about what our membership includes and the password for the members only section of our website. If you have no idea what I am talking about, send us an email and we can get that sent out to you!

The NJMQG board is doing the annual review of the bylaws. If anyone has any proposed amendments you are asked to submit a ‘proposal’ before the March meeting. Everything can be found in the members only section of the website here. Annette gave us the 4th quarter treasurer’s report overview. If you are interested in checking it out, that is also in the members only section. And speaking of financials we are also asking for a couple of volunteers to help us do an audit and review the financial stuff. Please reach out if you are willing to help with that.

We are also reaching out and planting the seed for any member who would like to be more involved in the guild and be a part of our board. We will definitely be looking for someone to step into the presidential role (could be co-lead), but also someone to help share program’s duties. If you are interested in another role, we are always looking for more good people to help make our fabulous guild continue on being what it is. Elections are in June and the new board members transition in July. Let us know if you, or someone else in the guild, might be a good fit!

The MQG Quiltcon 2023 in Atlanta is coming up! We have quite a few members who are going as well as having work hung at the show. I will share our member’s work on Instagram, but if I miss anything, send a pic/email to secretary at njmqg dot com and I can share. While a bunch will be in Atlanta we are having a Missing Quiltcon Open Sew over Zoom, February 25 from 10-2.

Our next meeting will be in person on March 18, from 10-12 with an Open Sew right after until 4. We hope you will join us for our Tea Party themed meeting. For those signed up, the needle minder swap will be happening and during the open sew time
Sam L will be on hand to walk any member whose interested in making a Schlep Bag. We will be meeting at our usual in person spot at the Community Church of Cedar Grove. If you are staying for the Open Sew, don’t forget to bring a project to work on, your machine, etc… We’ll send out a reminder, of course, that will include supplies for the bag.