Year End Funny

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and full bobbins all through 2015.

December's meeting & What's Coming in 2015

As a little gift for each other the members exchanged MUG RUGS.  Everyone drew a name from a hat back in October and we gifted them before supper this month.  We enjoyed our Christmas pot luck supper, then had our minimal business portion of the meeting.  Program entailed a Christmas Craft project - making PINECONES.  I think everyone finished their pinecone, which is nicer than taking home something half completed (since that usually sits on the shelf for the next 12 years.  Personally speaking, ya know?).

The real entertainment came AFTER the meeting.  Here are the emails that were floating around the next few days:

 Caledonia Quilt Guild - items left at meeting
Anne-Dec 10
Hello Everyone – The pot luck was delicious and I hope you had a great time making the pine cones. 
 These items were left in the hall at the end of the meeting ....
- a black & white mug rug, the bag has Sharon McB’s name on it.
- a plastic water bottle with a turquoise top
- a black Selections cookie tin with 1/2 doz. cookies in it.
 Let me know if any of these items are yours and I will bring them to the January meeting.
 Merry Christmas Everyone .....     Anne
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helen-mary-Dec 11
Anne, fill the water bottle with Baileys, put it on the mug rug, and eat the half dozen cookies.
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Janice-Dec 11
Hahaha, great idea!
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Gail-Dec 11
I agree
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monica-Dec 11
had a great time making pine cone- great dinner  thanks for sweet Mud mug.– lots of laughs-Merry Christmas all- Monica
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Lydia-Dec 11
Someone left their BOM kit on the craft table last night! If you want it to do call me (Lydia)cause I have time! If I don't receive a call, I will sew up the block myself and have two in!
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Christine-Dec 11
Hi Everyone
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a very happy new year.  (For me at least I feel very fortunate to be here - last Christmas spent in hospital was awful).   Thank you all for your kind words and for taking care of me!
Really great meeting Anne, wonderful food - maybe we should put out a cookbook!!!
Thanks Lydia for the pine cone instructions, sorry I couldn't stay I was so tired (I was out Tuesday night teaching the star styrofoam ball to a youth group at Carluke Presbyterian Church).  Boy those kids have energy!
Hope everyone can enjoy some "Baileys" Helen, - good idea.
See you all in 2015, I feel very fortunate to belong to such a wonderful group of ladies.
Blessings,
Christine
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Anne-Dec 11
You just gave me my laugh for the afternoon.   Sounds good to me.    hee hee    Anne Smile
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Ilda-Dec 11
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! Loved last evening potluck. I too feel very fortunate to belong the this wonderful group of ladies that welcome me with open arms. I am learning so much, thanks for sharing. The spirit of community that I experience in Caledonia reminds me of back home. Wishing you and your families a wonderful Festive Season and all the best in the New Year!
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Sue-Dec 11
What a great meeting last night….the best part was the spontaneous singing while we were doing our craft. It sounded so happy and festive.  Merry Christmas to all of you and your families and see you in the New Year.  Scrappy Club had 20 members signup so cost will be less than $25.00 but the numbers are not yet final.
Thank you all on behalf of your Program Committee.
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FlorisAnn-Dec 11
I can only say "AMEN" to each wonderful note that has come into my e-mail box...
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Sharon-8:56 PM
Oops guess I left my mugrug thanks Anne for picking it up.  What a great day Wed was sewing and socializing all day then eating and socializing then crafting, socializing and singing in the evening.  This member could not have asked for more.  Thanks to all for a great year I have learned so much and am looking forward to more sewing and fellowship in 2015.
 Merry Christmas to all...Sharon
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Coming at the 2015 meetings:
 January - teaching techniques stations

February - Ila Swayze on quilt judging

March - scrappy Quilt trunk show by members

April -Noshi  Gulati

May - Penny Sale of quilt stuff

June - Potluck

Cosmetic Bags and coming up in December

The program committee turned the Valentines Bag Swap into something new this year.  We made cosmetic bags for the Women's Shelter and filled them with personal care products.  41 Bags.  Woo hoo!!

The evening program entailed a Relay Race - two teams each made sashing and cornerstones for what will eventually be two donation quilts.  We made 9-patch blocks for the cornerstones, and railroad blocks as sashing.  Just like THIS. 

DECEMBER MEETING

This will be our Christmas pot luck supper.  Afterwards we will have 'craft hour'.

Supper:

• we eat at 6 pm, so come early
• bring your pot luck contribution
• bring your dishes & coffee mug, and a placemat if you like to be fancy

Craft Hour:

• we are making pine cones
• bring old fashioned steel-head straight pins if you have them
• bring 52 x 2" squares of fabric to make your pine cone

Martha Schellingerhoud Visit & coming up in November

Martha's presentation was very inspiring!  She can be reached through her web site.  Her daughter was her helper, and as you can see she tried to stay out of the photos.

The quilt was designed by Sally Colins and published in Small scale Quilting book

Inspiration for this quilt came from an Elsie Campbell quilt.

The pattern is by Judy Niemeyer, which I shrunk more than 50%.

NOVEMBER MEETING LOCATION CHANGE!!!!

• The November meeting will be held at St. Paul's Anglican Church on Orkney Street. 
• All normal activities will be taking place - sewing during the day, catered supper (you must sign up for supper beforehand) then our meeting at 7 pm.
• program will be a sewing relay race.

September's fun and Coming Up In October

In the summer we don't have 'meetings' but we do have sewing days.  Here are a few of the purses that were made.

The show & share in September is usually pretty extensive.  The gals have been busy at home, quilting away during the summer.  This is just a sampling of what was shown.

After the 'meeting' we played a game that we learned from our sister guild in Caledonia NY.  What will those two winners do with all those fat quarters???

Please join us in October for a presentation by Martha Schellingerhoud.  Here's a link to her web site.

• Wednesday, Oct. 8th, 7 pm.  
•  Please bring your own coffee mug for the break.
• Annual memberships are due

New Season starting Wednesday Sept. 10th

Our first meeting of the new season will be this week - Wednesday Sept. 10th.  We have a new starting time:  at 7 pm.
C'mon out and see what we hope to be doing this year.  See the right hand sidebar for location and fees.

Bit Players - Doo Wop Song "My Sewing Machine".wmv

I found this link on the CQA Facebook page. Ha ha - cute!!

Quilt Challenge Swap Day at the Cross-border Picnic with Caledonia NY guild

Five of us traveled from Caledonia, ON to Caledonia, NY for a picnic with our NY Sister Guild.  The NY gals were nice enough to feed us so we didn't have to bring food across the border.

This is the quilt the NY guild will raffle off next year as a fundraiser for their guild.

After lunch we played a game of Left.Right.Centre.  At stake was a pot of 39 fat quarters.

I was NOT the winner.  Boo.  The only good thing about that was I didn't have to explain a pile of fabric to the CRA Border Guard.

After the game we also spent some time talking 'guild stuff'.  That was really interesting too - sharing information on how our guilds operate, programs, games, challenges.

THE SWAP
One year ago we sent NY a 3m hunk of fabric.  Here is what we got in return.  :-)

They sent us 3 yd and we gave them back this.  :-)

These quilts are being donated to our respective Quilts of Valour programs, so it was all done for FUN and for a GOOD CAUSE.

We seem to like sewing and shopping

• Our July non-meeting-sewing-only day found 15 of us getting together to stitch and swap stories.

•  A bunch of the gals went on a cross-border shop hop last Friday.  I have not heard any reports of them getting thrown in the hoosegow trying to smuggle excess fabric back into Canada, so I guess they were all able to lie with aplomb stay within the legal limits.  :-)

• Scrappy Club will meet July 28th.
• Our get-together with the Caledonia, NY guild to exchange our Quilts Of Valo(u)r Challenge quilts will be August 9th.  There is a potluck picnic happening at the park near Chestnut Bay Quilting.

Summer!!

Before our season officially ended for the summer, a couple of our members made new aprons for the church ladies.

Some of the gals were away last week on a BUS TRIP to SHIPSHEWANA.  Do you suppose they bought any fabric?  ha ha ha...

They seem to have gotten some quilting time in.

And it looks like they ate!

We have another trip coming up in August - a few of us will be heading to the USA to swap challenge quilts with our sister guild in Caledonia, NY.  I guess that summertime is all about getting-away-from-it-all.

For July and August we don't have a regular meeting, but we DO still get together in the daytime for our sewing days - 9:30 till 4-ish.  The second Wednesday.  Bring $5 to cover the rent. 

And if you're at the trailer...

May's Trunk Show

Our guest speaker was Lynn Whitehead from Simcoe.

Gracious!  She brought a ton of quilts.  Lynn has an affinity for One Block Wonder quilts, and brought several beautiful examples.

As for me, I'm partial to Drunkard's Path quilts.  She brought one of those too!

If you would like to contact Lynn you can email her at blwhitehead @ sympatico.ca (you will need to remove the spaces) with a subject line of GUILD TRUNK SHOW.
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On June 11th we will celebrate the end of the 'guild' season with a pot luck supper.  We will start a bit earlier than usual - we eat at 6:30, so don't be late.

• MAKE SURE YOU BRING YOUR COMPLETED UFO CHALLENGE QUILT
• IF THAT LITTLE PUPPY IS STILL A UFO YOU NEED TO BRING A $10 PENALTY FINE FOR THE GUILD COFFERS.  Sadly, I think that is what I will be doing.

Upcoming on April 9th

Jim & Louise Clark from the Red Bobbin will be coming to the guild.  Don't miss it! 

What's an EXTRA UFO DAY?

A few times each year we have EXTRA UFO sewing days.  $5 covers your share of rent for the hall.  That will give you some dedicated time to:

Lay out your Oh My Gosh.  And get some opinions about the placement of the borders.  And listen to everyone say "oh my gosh".

Sadly, it gives you time to do some frog stitching.  rip it, rip it.

And the sampler quilt you started so long ago the quilt shop closed and reopened under another name?... you can finally get the blocks laid out.

And for the diehard hand quilters.  Ha ha ha - can you guess how long that border stripe fabric has been waiting for some attention?

March Scrappy

There were 14 of us at Scrappy Club yesterday.  You can see the assortment of projects that are in various states.  We are all having such a good bit of progress on our stash(es) - this has been the BEST idea ever. Having a fixed day every month to work on just one quilt is working our super for me.

Some of the members are uber-organized (I am not included in that bunch) and have kept a binder of the patterns selected every month.  I have added a list of them - see the top of the blog - there is a page for the SCRAPPY CLUB.  Then you can follow along, if you like.  The block in the bottom right corner of the above photo is mine.  A link to that pattern is here: Majestic Mountains.

One of the gals brought ginger snaps (yum, yum!) and another picked up brownies and Easter cookies when she did the lunch run to Jones Bakery.  Throughout the day I eavesdropped heard a gamut of conversations on babies, sex, parents (is there a theme here?), weather, nutrition, exercise, vacations, Pinterest (I also learned how to Pin a photo of my own to a board), along with plenty of chat about quilting.

On Wednesday March 26th we have an EXTRA UFO SEWING DAY on the schedule, so come along and bring your $5 for hall rent. 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

Our next guild meeting will be Wednesday April 9th.  At this point, I don't know what is on the Program but I'm sure it will be great.  Sewing for those who would like to come is from 10 - 5:30.  The real meeting starts at 7:30.

MARCH 12 MEETING CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER

Mother Nature is not finished with us yet. You will all have to stay home and quilt today.  I'd apologize (being a typical Canadian) but you should be used to this by now.

February bags, and coming up in March

Daytime sewing at the February meeting.

We love the lightweight easy-to-maneuver tables.

The wonderful caretaker at the church puts all the tables out for us, and puts them all away after our meeting.

The Valentines Bag Swap was not enthusiastically embraced this year.  I got a few complaints about the zipper instructions.  But the wallets that WERE done were just grand!

This is what I brought home from the table.  Nice.  Now I can smell like a girl.  :-)

The meeting on March 12th:
Thelma Vickers will be doing a small trunk show and discussing colour in scrappy quilts.  She was an avid gardener in her younger days, then moved on to art:  painting flowers mostly with watercolours.  Today she makes scrap quilts, using her knowledge to bring the quilts to life.

January Scrappy Club

It seems that most of the Scrappy Gals were at home shoveling out their driveways.  Out of 18 (?) members only five showed up.  The worst part was - the gal who usually BAKES for us didn't make it.  We had to lower our standards and eat grocery store cookies.  Boo.

January - Sun Bonnet Sue

This meeting was held at a different location so the church ladies did not feed us.  With the insanely cold temps outside some of the gals stayed in and had meat pies for supper.  Five of us braved the subzero temps and ventured out to the Cornerstone for supper.  Great meals all around.

Our guest speaker this month was Kaaren Biggs from Simcoe.  She did a great talk on Sun Bonnet Sue.  If you'd like to contact her for either a lecture or sewing/quilting classes her email address is " kdoublea @ eastlink.ca "  (take out the spaces and the " marks)

Some of our members brought in their own SBS quilts.
 





FEBRUARY PROGRAM
Feb. 12th at our usual location.  Marilyn Micchelin from the Niagara Heritage Quilters Guild will be coming to talk about Quilt Canada 2014.
AND:  Don't forget to bring your Cell Phone Wallet with $10 worth of stuff in it if you are participating in the February Valentines Bag Swap.
Sewing day will take place as usual before the meeting, from 9:30 until 5:30.  My plan is to have all the parts necessary for us to finish the top we are making for the Cross Border Challenge with Caledonia, NY.

January RELOCATION

Our January meeting will be relocated to St. Paul's Anglican Church, 27 Orkney St E, Caledonia.
Our regular church had a conflict so we are moving this one meeting to another local church.  Sewing will still be going on all day at St. Paul's from 9:30 until 5-ish.  We are on our own for supper, so I think a bunch of us will either order pizza or go to a local restaurant.

Program January 8/14 - Kaaren L. Biggs is coming to talk about Sunbonnet Sue quilts. She would like to invite guild members to participate in a Show and Tell by bringing any and all Sue items that they may have.

The good news is I bought myself a new camera (gotta love Amazon.ca for their boxing day sales!) so you might see some pics of this meeting.  If I get the software and wifi for the camera figured out.  Yay.

The Valentines Bag Swap pattern can be found here.  I will also bring some paper versions of the pattern to the January meeting.  This year it's a cell phone wallet.  If you would like to join the fun, simply make a bag and put $10 worth of 'stuff' in it.  The stuff can be anything - it's not necessarily sewing related.  Gift cards are ok, too.  Bring the bag to our February meeting - there will be a swap table set up.  If you bring a bag you can take a bag.