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!
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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