Our August meeting was a potluck and scrap swap. It was casual and informal, as members gathered in the Centennial room to share food and conversation. The members who brought food and beverage to share really did an excellent job and we all had to bundle up some of our yummy treats to take back home.
There was also a scrap swap with a table full of scraps brought by members, many of which were re-homed to a new-to-them sewing stash, with the rest being taken for use either for programming related to the Quilts and Human Rights exhibit at the Pick Museum at NIU or for a charity dog bed project that members have already contributed to.
Debbie Pine also brought in some pre-cut strips of Kona snow and some foundation paper squares to make string blocks (from these scraps or yours at home) for charity quilts that members could take home and create. The strip of Kona snow is to go diagonally across the center of the block to connect the string blocks across many different scraps from many different stashes. There are still squares and strips that will be available fro members to take home at the September meeting.
The end of the meeting was a lovely round of show and tell where several members brought in quilts, bags, and embroidery projects.
Announcements:
September 11, from 10am-2pm Sarah Shulman and Debbie Pine have arranged for guild members to join a sew-in at their temple to put together the blocks created for the Road Home project that Sarah Shulman has been collecting blocks for. A blog post will follow with exact details, but all hands are welcome.
Our guild will be hosting a mini quilt swap between our guild members! It will be a secret swap and revolve around a favorite scrap of fabric that each swapper will provide to their secret maker. The mini quilts will be no bigger than 24″ per side and more details will follow soon. Sign ups will begin in September with completed quilts being swapped at our February meeting! More details coming soon.
Pick Museum of Anthropology Quilts and Human Rights outing with brunch, exhibit tour AND special tour of the textile collection is September 23, beginning at 9:30am (where we will be joined by the Bloomington Normal Modern Quilt Guild). See the blog post for more details.
Fall Retreat falls on the 20-23 of October at the Siena Center, and sign ups will begin soon through the blog and the MQG boards with the lottery happening at the September meeting. PLEASE note that check out time on the additional and optional Monday will be at noon. As a result, the board is reducing the rate for the extra night/day of sewing for this retreat only. The board acknowledges that this has happened to us several times lately and we are addressing this in future contracts, but we were not able to make changes to this upcoming retreat except to discount the price for those who stay the additional day and night.
Upcoming meetings:
September 17: Mary Fons Lecture “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” at the DuPage County History Museum in Wheaton. NOTE: the meeting will be from 1pm-4pm instead of our regular time and there will be a guest fee of $10 for non-members but they are welcome!
October 15: All about bags coordinated by Sarah Shulman. There will be a series of short presentations relating to making successful bags followed up by some small group Q&A sessions.
November 19: UFOs (but not from space – the kind that take up space in your craft room) coordinated by Debbie Pine. If you would like to share ideas and help coordinate the meeting OR you have a UFO that is crying out for help and you want to bring it to the meeting to get it help OR if you have a UFO that needs to be re-homed to someone who will love it, please contact Debbie.
December 10: Winter Holiday Potluck and gift swap. This will be a blind swap where you bring a wrapped handmade gift that took you two hours or less to make. Unlike in past years, time is the only limit on what you can bring as a gift but please remember that our membership practices many faiths, so make sure your gift is non-denominational. Instead of having a demo meeting in the fall, demo ideas will be hosted on the guild’s Pinterest board where there will be links to lots of ideas and plans and patterns.
All meetings are 2-5 pm on the third Sunday of the month, unless otherwise noted.
This month’s meeting is on Sunday, September 17 from 1-4pm at the DuPage County Historical Museum
A list of our meetings can be found here.
Not a member, but would like to be? Click the button below to join our Guild!
We hope to see you there!
