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September 23, 2024

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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 Quilts, now 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 Guild – October 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

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NJMQG Secretary

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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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NJMQG Secretary

Posted on

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