May 2025 Meeting Recap

34 members and 1 guest were at our meeting on Saturday May 17th at the First Lutheran Church in Montclair. Thanks for coming everyone!

Guild Business

  • Board Elections – The election will take place at the June meeting, which will start at 10 am. The new board will transition prior to the July meeting.
    The nominees are:
    • President (2-yr term): Ann Marston
    • Vice President: Emily Clifford
    • Secretary: Kathy Morganroth
    • Programs Co-chairs: Holly Finneran & Samantha Linehan
  • 2026 Quilt Showcase Committee – The committee will meet soon. Emily Clifford is the showcase chair. Please contact her if you’d like to join in the fun of making this happen.
  • We added the QuiltCon 2025 Catalog to our library of quilting books, magazines and rulers. See Caroline at a meeting to borrow.

PLEASE NOTE: Our June meeting will start at 10 am.

MQG Business

QuiltCon 2026 February 19-22 Raleigh, NC.

Challenges and Hotels

2026 Windham Artisan Cotton Fabric Challenge

  • For this challenge, members must use at least 3 of the 6 challenge fabrics chosen by the QuiltCon 2026 featured speaker, Hillary Goodwin.

American Patchwork & Quilting Diamonds Quilting Challenge

  • Eligible quilts will have the diamond (rhombus) shape as a primary element of the quilt design. You’ll find lots of examples of this and additional details on the challenge page.

Raleigh Hotel Blocks for 2026

  • We’ve secured blocks in six hotels for you to choose from. Check out the details on the website.

Community Outreach Challenge QuiltCon 2026

  • The theme is Medallion quilts, a fun way to work as a group and experiment with different repeating shapes and secondary patterns.
  • Size constraints of a maximum of 65”x85” and a minimum of 60”x80” must be adhered to.
    More info on the MQG’s website.
  • We want your ideas! Put your thinking cap on and submit a design to the Board for our guild to create using one of these palettes.
  • Bear in mind that entire color palette must be used, with no additional colors allowed, and broad participation by as many NJMQG members as possible is an essential feature of this challenge.
Palette #1: Brights
Palette #2: Blues

Call For Entry

MQG is curating a fresh exhibit in partnership with The Dairy Barn Arts Center! This juried exhibit will display the wide variety of talent and innovation happening in modern quilting today.

Submissions will be open April 21, 2025 – June 16, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
There is no submission fee.

  • Submitted quilts may be in any modern style and may or may not have been exhibited at QuiltCon in the past.
  • The entries will be juried by MQG staff.
  • Any MQG member may submit up to 2 quilts to the call.
  • A limit of 1 quilt per maker will be chosen with a final exhibit of approximately 20 quilts.
  • Quilts must have been completed within the last 3 years (2023, 2024, 2025).
  • Quilts must be available to ship to arrive in Athens, Ohio by September 5, 2025.
  • There is no minimum size for quilt submissions, but the maximum size will be 90″ on any side.

The June meeting will start at 10 am.


Programs

Ongoing

  • Mystery Quilt – Step 4 was emailed May 15th. The reveal will be in October.
  • Bee Block Party – current blocks will be swapped at the June meeting.
  • Mini-Quilt “Initial” Challenge – open to all members. Finished quilts are due at the June 21st meeting which starts at 10 am. (Remember to keep it secret until then – no posting on social media!)
    • The basic parameters are:
      • Make a mini-quilt, Min 12″ Max 24″ per side. (Does not have to be square.)
      • Choose a main color based on the initial of your first name.
      • Choose an inspiration block based on the initial of your last name.
      • Bring your finished mini to the June meeting (wrapped, to maintain anonymity) where we’ll display them all and vote for Viewers Choice. The winner will receive a prize!
  • Charity projects will continue to be collected by Kelly for donating to CASA.
  • Montclair Art Museum field trip to see an exhibit of Montclair collage artist Nanette Carter was planned post-meeting, but we found out at the last minute that the museum was closed to prepare for a gala that evening. (What nerve! Did they check with us? Did they invite us? Hmpf.) We hope to reschedule another day to see it before it closes on July 6.

Upcoming

  • Felting Workshop with Josie Dakers-Brathwaite on Saturday July 19th at First Lutheran Church of Montclair, 10a-2p. Stay tuned for class registration info.

Reminder: June meeting starts at 10 am


Improv Inspiration

The trunk show by member Carolyn McKibben was a real treat! Carolyn’s work will be displayed in a solo show titled Nature’s Tapestry at the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit June 7 – October. Go see it!

Follow Carolyn on Instagram @quiltergardener


Repeat after me: the June meeting starts at 10 am.


Show & Tell

  • From the Kawandi Workshop with Ellaree Pray – (1) Debbie, (2) Caroline, (3) Sue, (4) Jo Ann. Great work everyone!
Debbie
Caroline
Sue
Jo Ann
  • Thanks everyone for showing your wonderful work! Jo Ann (1), Sue (2), Ann (3), Betsy V. (4, 5).

Next Meetings

Saturday June 21, 2025 In-person 10a-1p

  • New meeting time: 10 AM!
  • Board election
  • Initial Challenge mini-quilts due & vote for Viewers Choice!

Thursday July 17, 2025 Zoom meeting 7-9p

Thursday August 21, 2025 Zoom meeting 7-9p

See you in June at 10 am!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

xo,
Kathy

January 2023 Meeting Recap

Hello quilty friends! Hope you’ve all had a lovely start to the new year. This month we had 50 people join us for our Zoom meeting. We welcomed some new friends to our guild with a special shout out to Mary Ann D, Daniel R, Cindy S, Pat B, Mary K, Pam F and Michelle.

We went over some quick guild business, because what we all were here for this month was a lecture from Heather Kojan. First things first, we could not continue without proudly congratulating our very own member and cofounder, Aleeda C. for being elected MQG Board President! We know she will put her heart and smarts into her role. Read more about it here!

Quiltcon is coming up. Thanks for Margy S. for once again taking the lead on all the coordinating for the Community Outreach Quilt. If you are going to be in Atlanta, Lenny is coordinating a meetup/group photo. Contact her to join in. For those of us not going to Quiltcon, we will be hosting an open sew over Zoom on Saturday, February 25. We’ll send out an email with that info soon.

We are in the middle of our guild renewal! Tell your friends! I may be biased, but we have the best guild around. Don’t forget to fill out the form AND then send the payment, either through Paypal, or check to the PO Box. To do that and find out more check it out here. We are hoping to have majority of the signups done by the end of January. We reset our roster in February.

We will be hosting a Needle Minder Swap! We will be sending out the sign ups and matching up partners soon. Then we will be swapping at our In Person Tea Party meeting/Open Sew in March.

Last, but certainly not least, we welcomed Heather Kojan for a lecture ahead of the Interleave Piecing class she was teaching on Saturday January 21.

Heather talked to us about Quilt Design. Her personal style is more modern traditional. During the pandemic she was quite a prolific quilter with about 20 quilts each in 2020 and 2021! Regarding quilt design she talked about 5 points. Inspiration (is everywhere!), Design Composition, Education, Selection and Construction and Documentation. It was lovely to have her with us and I hope everyone enjoyed!

Next month we will have our usual updates, as well as the quarterly treasurer’s report and show and tell! Send pictures of everything you’ve been working on to programs at njmqg dot com. We want to see all the quilty goodness!

Until next time, be well, stay crafty!

-A

Ultraviolet Radial Workshop

NJMQG is excited to host Audrey Esarey of Cotton and Bourbon for her Ultraviolet Radial Workshop. This is a brand new pattern being released just before our workshop. Be the one of the first to learn this pattern from Audrey! She will teach us her techniques for foundation paper piecing and curved piecing. This is a great workshop to learn something new or brush up on your techniques. Our workshop will be held over zoom on April 2 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm EST. The cost of the workshop is $57 for NJMQG members and $67 for non-members. (Plus a $2.00/class PayPal fee). NJMQG members will have one week to sign up before the workshop will be opened to nonmembers. Sign ups close on March 26 or when all 20 spots are full. Please fill out this google form to hold your spot in the class. Then pay the workshop fee.