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.

Pot Luck for December meeting

No pics, sorry.  The phone just doesn't stay charged long enough for my needs.   
must.buy.new.camera.

November's meeting included a great talk by Anita Zobens about thread and needles, with a SALE of her wonderful stuff.  Cottonmill Thread Works - link HERE.  She flattered me when she told the guild that I was a 'gem' as the blog mistress, because I keep this little space on the web up-to-date.  It's nice to get a compliment now and then, eh? :-)

DECEMBER 11 - Pot luck dinner at 6:30.  Bring your dish and your plate/cutlery.  If you come for sewing during the day there are a couple of fridges you can use to keep your stuff cold.  Our program for the evening will be a show & tell of the quilts that the Scrappy Club has been working on. 

October's Meeting

There were a dozen of us, or so, who came and sewed for the day.  Then several more came for dinner.  It's a great time to catch up.

Supper by the church ladies.  Lasagne, salad, rolls, squash, pickle tray.  A delicious cheesecake-ey dessert followed with tea & coffee.  We love our church ladies.  :-)

The evening presentation was by Kathy Thompson, History of the Underground Railroad.  That was really interesting.  You can see her wee sample quilt here.

Coming up:
Wednesday Oct. 23rd is an EXTRA UFO SEWING DAY from 9 - 5.  No meeting, just working on our projects.  Bring $5 and your lunch.

Monday Oct. 28th - Scrappy Club for those who have pre-registered.  9 - 5.  If you missed out on this group, maybe you can sign up for a second session that we hope to start in February.

Monday Nov. 25th -  Scrappy Club for those who have pre-registered.  9 - 5.

THE NOVEMBER MEETING WILL BE TWO WEEKS LATE:  WEDNESDAY NOV. 27TH.  We get bumped every year due to the church involvement in the Holiday House Tour.  It will be worth the wait, though - Anita Zobens from Cottonmill Threadworks will be our guest speaker. 

September's Scrappy Group

As you can see, there are some obvious overachievers who are finished a SECOND top already.  A few of us are a little bit slower, continuing to work on pattern number one.  In both cases, though, we are working through our scraps.  Yay!!

September meeting - the start of a new season

Our new season started on September 11th.  As usual, we had several members come in the morning to spend the day working on many different projects.  The church ladies provided a delicious meal of sweet & sour meatballs with all the fixings, followed by a delicious dessert.  The official meeting started at 7:30 pm when programs for the coming year were announced.

For the past year, and going forward, we are covered by our own insurance policy.  This has necessitated an increase in our membership dues to $50 per year.  That works out to $5 per meeting and is still an inexpensive way to spend your evening. 
Membership gives you:

•  a monthly newsletter
• access to our wonderful library of quilting and needlework books
• the opportunity to join in sewing days and catered dinners
• guest speakers exhibiting a wide array of quilts with related lectures and classes
• easy access to members with lots of expertise and the willingness to share knowledge
• fabric swaps, block exchanges, structured quilt block lessons, raffle draws
• social break at every meeting with coffee, tea, and a selection of desserts

This year we are running a Sampler Quilt program that is based on the Underground Railroad quilts.  So don't miss the next meeting!

Coming up on October 9th:

Kathy Thompson from Simcoe is giving a quilt related talk on the history of the Underground Railroad.

Cross Border Quilting

August is not a typical choice for quilt shows, but it worked out really well for five of our members.  Summer is a wonderful time to travel and experience holidays with your friends.  We loaded up our weekender suitcases and headed down the highway to Caledonia, NY for a quilt show by our adopted sister guild.  They refer to themselves as the Caledonia Guild, NY Office.  Ha ha - too cute.

Caledonia, NY is a very old, very pretty town.  I was joking that I think the Stepford Wives must live there - it was so clean and tidy. The quilt show was in a beautiful school where the guild had quilts hung in two gymnasiums.  Lots of quilts.  A surprising number of quilts for a small guild.

This is a wee selection of the quilts I thought looked nice and scrappy (in honour of OUR new Scrappy Club).

We stayed at the Genesee Country Inn - a beautiful bed & breakfast that is a former mill.  The bedrooms were pretty but not fussy, and each boasted a private bathroom.  The beds were super comfy and breakfast was delicious - lasting for a couple of hours, relaxing over coffee.  The owners were friendly and chatty, making us feel really welcome.

Over the next year our guilds will be making cross-border challenge quilts for each other that are destined for donation to our respective Quilts of Valour programs.  So far we have given each other 3 yards of fabric, with a deadline of June 2014 to complete a quilt, approximately sized 72 x 90.  With luck we can arrange a picnic day next June or July to swap the completed quilts and get better acquainted face-to-face rather than via facebook.