September 2024 Meeting Recap

Happy Autumn!

Our first in-person meeting since June was held on Saturday September 21, at the First Lutheran Church in Montclair with 38 members and 2 guests in attendance. Welcome back everyone!

QuiltCon 2025

  • Registration woes have been sorted out.
  • October 31st deadline for quilt entries. Get those quilts finished!
  • Volunteer sign-ups opened September 19th.

QuiltCon Community Outreach Quilt

Thanks to the members who gathered at Paula’s house to create the block kits which were ALL distributed at this meeting! Yay!

To those who picked up kits, it’s not necessary to trim your blocks, and please leave the paper on the back.

October 19th Completed blocks are due at the in-person meeting.

MidMod 2025 April 4-6 2025

  • As a sponsoring guild, 10 spots are reserved for our members to access early registration. NJMQG will hold a lottery to award those 10 spots, and an email with a link to the sign up form was sent to members on September 23rd. Winners pay NJMQG $35 to get their early access code.

Early registration: Monday October 7th at 7 pm through Monday October 14th at 7 pm.
General registration: Sunday, November 3rd at 7 pm.

  • Due to rising costs of the hotel space and, well, everything, we do have a price increase for MOD 2025. The early bird registration fee is $315 and the general registration (for those that do not receive early bird pricing) is $365. General registration spots sell out quickly!

Holiday Party – seeking volunteers

  • Our annual Holiday Party will be on Saturday December 7th, 11a-3p.
  • We need a few volunteers to help plan, organize, and execute including menu, activity, setup, cleanup, etc. Please contact Ann.

Programs

Pockets-to-Go Swap

  • Over a dozen pockets-to-go bags were joyfully exchanged! Nice work everyone!

Bee Block Party

When you sign up for the bee, you will choose a type of block you want to make as well as a color scheme you would like for your quilt. You will be split into groups, then you will make the same 12 inch quilt block for each member of your bee, in their preferred colorway with fabrics from your stash. Your completed blocks will be distributed to all the members of your bee and everyone should have enough to create their own quilt top.

  • All completed blocks should be 12″ x 12″ finished (12.5″ x 12.5″ unfinished).
  • Saturday September 28th Sign ups end.
  • Sunday September 29th Group assignments go out.
  • Saturday November 16, 2024 Completed blocks due at the in-person meeting.

Next meetings

Saturday October 19 – In-person 11a-1p at the First Lutheran Church of Montclair.

  • Outreach Quilt blocks due
  • New name tag if you’re working on a swap with someone.
  • Show & Tell!

Saturday November 16 – in person meeting

Saturday December 7 – in-person Holiday Party

Other Good Stuff Happening

  • Montclair Fiber Arts Club – register through Lifelong Montclair to join this group with your needlework at Edgemont Park House 290 Valley Road every other Wednesday 10a-12p.
  • Hunterdon Art Museum – 7 Lower Center Street Clinton, NJ 08809, Unblocked: Improvisation and Identity in Contemporary Quiltsnow through January 12th, 2025.

    Featuring Elizabeth Brandt, Zak Foster, Coulter Fussell, Chawne Kimber, Basil Kincaid, Kwesi O. Kwarteng, Krystle Lemonias, Sarah Nishiura, our own Melanie Tuazon, and Sherri Lynn Wood.
Unblocked brings together a diverse group of artists whose quilts tell stories, express identity, celebrate community, further social justice, and engage in formal design and color investigations. Comfortable with improvisation, these artists use materials that are readily available—often discarded or donated clothing and domestic textiles—and work intuitively, without a structured plan.

  • Quilts in the Mill – Prallsville Mills – 33 Risler Street (Route 29), Stockton, NJ 08559, Confetti of Color sponsored by Courthouse Quilters Guild, Friday-Sun September 27-29th 2024.

    On Fri and Sat, our own Jo Ann Lepore will be signing her newly published book, Picture Patchwork.

  • Clifton Quilters GuildOctober 17 bus trip to Poconos.
  • Stars of the Valley Quilt Show – Sanfordville Elementary School 144 Sanfordville Road, Warwick, New York, Saturday-Sunday, October 19 & 20, sponsored by Warwick Valley Quilters.

    At 1p Saturday, Melanie Tuazon will be giving a lecture Planned and Unplanned: Design and Improv in Piecing

Show & Tell

Post-meeting FMQ Workshop

  • Jackie and Samantha led this terrific informative class on free-motion quilting, with a ton packed into a few hours. Good job everyone! Practice, practice, practice!

Next meeting

In-person Saturday October 19, 11a-1p at the First Lutheran Church of Montclair.

  • Outreach Quilt blocks due
  • New name tag if you’re working on a swap with someone.
  • Show & Tell!

Happy sewing!

xo,
Kathy

NJMQG June 2024 Guild Meeting

Hello all and happy Summer! Hope you are all staying cool and getting some sewing time in! We had yet another lovely meeting last month. We had 30 members joining us, including a newer member meeting with us in person for the first time. We also welcomed two guests, Joanna and Annette! Hope you join us again soon!

We want to give a special shout out thanks to Aleeda for donating a Keurig machine to the guild. As always we had our free table with a machine Karen brought, that I hope went home with someone. We received the latest copy of Quiltfolk magazine, which can be found in our library. Don’t forget, our library is chock full of books, magazines, patterns, and templates. You just need to check them out with Caroline and you could be on your way to learning something new!

Kelly is working with us on all things charity and we had made about 10 quilt tops that were available to be put together. A few members stayed after to cut batting and backing.

Programs was up next. We are hosting a shibori workshop on July 13, with Miriam Jacobs in Margy’s driveway in Clifton. Paula is coordinating our Community Outreach quilt for this year. The theme is lines and bars. If this strikes any inspiration in you, send in a design idea!! In September we are doing a blind swap for the Pockets to go organizer. If you haven’t bought the pattern, we have a few available for purchase.

The MQG started a quilt label week. The week of June 17, they encouraged everyone to take the time to do that important finishing step of labeling a quilt. If you have taken part, you can tag the MQG and use #labelmyquilts. The MQG Make-a-difference challenge was put out and you can find out more about it here. This year the theme is pollinators. Quiltcon is February 20-23, 2025 in Phoenix, AZ. Registration starts July 31. Set your schedule up now so you’re ready to go! Next years key note is Tara Faughnan. Submissions for the show are from September 1-October 31.

Programs is starting a new set of bee blocks! Keep your eye out for sign ups. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to get blocks for a quilt top. And Mary let us know that the Warwick Valley Guild show is a go in October. Submissions are due by Sept 7, and the quilts need to be dropped off in person on October 7. You can find out more and print the forms from their website!

Congrats to Debby for winning the first raffle prize! and Caroline the 2nd!

Rachel helped run our elections for this year. Ann Marston is continuing her term as president and Annette is staying on as treasurer. We elected all of our newest board members unopposed and unanimously. Let’s give a warm welcome to our new VP, Samantha. Holly is joining Margy in running programs, and Kathy is taking over the role of secretary. (I will miss being a part of the board, but I’m sure I’ll be back) Can’t wait to see what the new board has in store for us.

As tradition goes, the guild works together to make a quilt for the last outgoing president. Big thanks to Lenny who designed the quilt, the members who made blocks and to Krishma for quilting it. What a beautiful collaboration for a beautiful human who led our guild through those weird pandemic years.

Show and Tell Time!

Wannetta- scraps into pillows and tote
Debby- Applique learned from JoAnn for 5 yr old grandchild

Our next two meetings will be over Zoom. Thursday July 18 and August 15 at 7:00. Keep an eye out for the links and as always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, concerns, ideas…

Well folks, that’s all for now. I’m signing off from the secretary duties. It’ll be nice to just be a regular member for a while. Like I said, I’m sure I’ll be back in some capacity, but I’m looking forward to getting back to my sewing machine! Enjoy the rest of the summer! Stay cool! Happy quilting!

-A

February 2024 Guild Meeting Recap

Hello again, so soon! On February 15 we had our monthly meeting over Zoom. We had 27 members joining us. We welcomed new members Charlotte, Blake and Janet. Hope to see you all again soon, and get to know you better at our in person meetings!

We let everyone know that the welcome email went out with the updated password for the members only section of our website, a calendar of events, with some changes of our April class and guild meeting. If you haven’t received any of the emails or need any information, don’t hesitate to reach out to a board member.

Our next meeting will be in person on March 16 at 11:00 at the First Lutheran Church in Montclair. We will start off with some guild business as usual and we will have a skills lab where some members will be sharing some skills with us. There will be plenty of time for open sew and/or hanging out too. Hope to see you there!

After Annette gave us a quick recap of the treasurer’s report, we had another great lecture this month. We welcomed Kirsten Fisher, who is the co-president of the Brooklyn guild. She told us all about her fabric bowl and how they are made. She shared so many examples, it was fascinating! We had to cancel the scheduled class with her, but are hoping we can host her to teach us how to make them someday.

We put out some feelers about a possible field trip. Tuesday March 26, we are thinking of doing a field trip of sorts to Philly to check out a cool exhibit, have a yummy lunch, and hit up our friend’s fabric shop. Anyone interested, send an email to programs!

Well, that’s all for now. Spring is in the air and it is invigorating! Hope to see you all at our March meeting! Bring a snack or drink to share, a project to work on, your good old fabulous self! See you soon!

-A