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April 8, 2024

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March 2024 Guild Meeting Recap

Hello quilty friends and happy spring! We had an absolutely fabulous meeting at our new space. Thank you to the 38 members and 3 guests we had join us! We want to give a special shout out to those who introduced themselves: Blake (new to quilting but prolific!), Janet (From Colonia), Arlene (a traditional friend), Paula (quilting since 1987), Cecelia (quilting for 30 years), Sue (makes clothing and quilts) and Bonnie (who works with clay). So nice meeting you all and hope to see you again!

We started our meeting off with a little Quitcon recap. We are always so proud to be a guild that has many members who have quilts hanging in the show. Betsy V, had 3 hanging, with 1 winning first prize, for her Windham Fabric challenge quilt, Overprint. Lenny (3), Miguel (2), Melanie, Liz (2), and Juandamarie also had quilts hanging in the show. Congratulations to all! Aleeda metioned this year had the biggest attendance on record for Quiltcon, with 15,000 people attending! Amazing! While some of us were away at Quiltcon, others of us at home took part in an open sew. Quilting friends and sewing, what can be better?

The latest issue of Quiltfolk Magazine was all about NJ. We have a copy of it in our library if you’d like to check it out. Congrats to Krishma, Juandamarie and Aleeda!

Kelly shared with us a charity block we can work on for 2024. Use your stash, those precuts you no longer like or get some fabric from the charity bin and get to sewing! Using 5″ squares, make a 9 block (3×3) and add a 3″ strip to two sides of the block. The finished block should be 16.25″ square. Bring your finished blocks to the April meeting, and there might just be a prize for the person who brings the most in…

Lucky Raffle winners Rebecca, Carolyn, and Tracy

Just some reminders. Caroline Hayes is our librarian and our library cart is always accessible during our in person meetings to borrow books, magazines, patterns and templates. The free table is also always out for our meetings. REMINDER, if you bring something that doesn’t get taken, please bring it back home with you or it will be thrown away!

Besides all the snacks (our “tea party” themed meeting is always one of my faves) Show and Tell is our favorite part of getting together. It’s been a long time and you all did not disappoint!

Casey- Alison Glass Trinket Quilt along- foundation pieced

Based on a painting- Memory of Lambertville

Karen Fricke- Quilt Arts magazine article

Rachel- Libs Elliott class- will be a cushion cover

Jacquie Gering class panel turned Open Wide pouch

Sally Tomato Connie backpack with selvages

Betsy V- one of the MANY fanny packs made

Remember all those things you brought in to donate to Kelly’s request for the members of the Lakota Tribe? Well, we received the nicest thank you!

After the break we had a skills lab where some of our members showed us some tips and tricks. Thanks to Carol P/quilt sandwich, Margy/flanged binding, Betsy V/hanging sleeve, and Karen F/quilt labels. I sadly did not get any pictures…

Some upcoming things to keep in mind. If you are a new member and need a nametag (or are an old member and want to have a new one) we are doing another nametag swap. The MQG is doing a sew along that starts on April 18. Check it out here. Our next meeting is 1 week later than normal, on April 27 (which just so happens to be my birthday, gifts not necessary, but will be accepted ;P) Betsy will hold a workshop after our meeting to make the Frost Fanny Pack, which you must be signed up for (and paid) to participate in. Sign up here! And as always, the board is planning ahead, so keep and eye out for more great opportunities to participate in!

Spring is springing! Happy sewing!

-A

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January 30, 2023

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2023, Guest presenter, guild business, meeting recaps, MQG, Programs, QuiltCon, swaps, Uncategorized, workshop

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

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NJMQG Secretary

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August 19, 2022

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2022, challenges, guild business, meeting recaps, MQG, Open Sew, Uncategorized, volunteer

August 2022 Guild Meeting Recap

Hello all! We had another great meeting last month! We had 44 people joining us. Welcome to new members Holly, Jennifer, Juanda, and Marina!

We had the pleasure of having Tighe Flanagan talk to us, but before he did, we had a little bit of guild business to go over.

As you may have heard, we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary…for a whole year! June 2012 the guild started having meetings and in 2013 we officially joined the MQG. As part of the celebration to commemorate, we had some pins made. At our June in-person meeting we were able to give a lot of them out. We had been planning on mailing out the rest, but to be honest, the postage was higher than we had expected, so we are going to hang on to them to hopefully see more of you in-person to hand out. We do have some more in-person meetings and open sews coming up, but for those of you who aren’t able to meet up, we can plan a way to pick up, drop off, or if you would like it sent, we are asking for you to pay for postage. (There are some extra ones for sale if you are interested in more, too) reach out to Ann vicepresident at njmqg dot com.

We have matched up some more members for a name tag swap. If you are new or interested in having a name tag made for you, let us know!

Approximately 35 members have signed up to take part in the I Used To Be a Shirt mini challenge to be shown at Peters Valley October-November. Crista has sent out the emails with the details, but to recap it must made from a button down shirt and white and/or cream fabric. It should be no smaller than 18″ no larger than 24″ SQUARE. If you are feeling inspired, you can make more than one. Really, you can make as many as you like! Don’t forget to add corner tabs for hanging and a label! Taking pictures beforehand isn’t necessary(if you saw that on the email form), but if you want to take process photos you can tag NJMQG and Peters Valley on instagram. The minis need to be handed over by September 27. They can be dropped of at Crista’s or we can plan other ways to get it where it needs to be. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions! Oh! Keep those scraps, too! We have something special planned for them.

Peters Valley is holding their craft fair on September 24 and 25 from 10-5. The guild will have a community booth so we can share more about modern quilting. If you are interested in taking a shift to work the booth and/or to lend some quilts to display, let us know!

Our MQG Community Outreach Quilt, for 2023 Quiltcon in Atlanta, is in the works. We voted on the blue/green color way with a log cabin style block idea by Aubrey. (sample above made with Aubrey’s stash) Some members will be getting together to cut the fabric for kits soon. We will be sure to let you know when they are ready to be picked up. We will be having an open sew on September 10, which will be the perfect time to pick up and/or work on the blocks. We are always looking for volunteers to help at every stage, so if you are interested in more than just making a block, please reach out. We will need help putting the blocks together, quilting, binding, even putting on the label! We would like to have all the blocks before the October meeting to stay on schedule.

A few announcements…
The deadline for the Warwick Valley Quilters Guild show is fast approaching. Check here for more info or contact Penny (email in members only section)

To try and keep things a little more easily organized, an At a Glance newsletter has been sent out and posted for everyone. It’s a nice bullet point list of upcoming dates to keep in mind. Hopefully it will help everyone!

Next up we had our guest lecturer, Tighe Flanagan. He lives in DC, has an MA in Arab studies from Georgetown and calls himself a lifelong creative. He started quilting in 2016, had his first quilt in a show in 2019, and got his first award in 2021. If you look at his work you can clearly see how he is inspired by art, architecture and math! He talked about his arsenal of tools and skills and math, lots of math! There were still a couple of spots left for his class on Saturday. Even if you can’t make it, he generously gave all members a coupon code for his site through the end of the month. The code was sent out, but if you lost track of it, someone on the board can send it to you. You can also find a free pattern of his on the MQG website. It was a pleasure to have him speak to us about his quilts and process.

For the lucky who jumped at the chance, we have a workshop with Jacquie Gering, who will be showing us how to step up our walking foot game. It was filled up in no time, but we have plenty of other good stuff coming up, too. We will be sure to update soon!

Summer is flying by and before you know it, school will be starting, days will be cooler and we will continue to have more fun things going on! Hoping we’ll see you at the open sew on September 10 or our monthly guild meeting on Thursday September 15 over Zoom. In the mean time, keep on working on the minis, WIP’s and more! Just keep on quilting!