Thursday, May 26, 2011

May 2011 Meeting

The meeting was held on May 24 at Helen's house. (We are grateful to Helen for being such a gracious hostess!)

Attending: Peggy, Linda, Dawn, Helen, Margie, Randi, Tricia

Margie brought a delicious Southwest salad that reminded her of a tostada salad from her childhood. It was served over blue corn tortilla chips with a spicy dressing. Tricia brought home-baked beer bread, and Dawn served delicious chocolate chip cookies (homemade) and brownies for dessert.

Next Meeting

*** June meeting is canceled ***

Purse Workshop

Instead of the June meeting, we will meet for the purse workshop on Saturday, June 25 at 10:00 AM at the Cooperative Extension meeting room in Carson City.

*** Bring finished DragonLord quilts ***

Supplies: Bring your own supplies for the purse of your choice as listed on the pattern. Peggy and Tricia will bring assorted miscellaneous supplies, such as grommets, buttons, magnetic snaps, and various stabilizers and batting for those "just in case" moments.

Ironing stations: Most purses use fusible batting, so everyone will need to do quite a bit of ironing, so multiple small ironing stations would be helpful.

Food: To maximize sewing time, we will all bring our own bag lunches. Snacks and goodies to share are optional.



Business

Project DragonLord

Randi distributed the quilt labels, including those for the Ditch Stitchers, which Dawn will deliver to Donna. All quilt labels have now been delivered. The deadline for the Bee's quilts is June 25 to be delivered to Linda at the purse workshop. Linda and her daughter are currently exploring options for shipping the quilts.



Our group will also be making pillowcases for the deployed mothers of the DragonLord children. We didn't do "sign ups" for who would be making the pillowcases, other than Linda, so please contact Linda if you want to help. About six pillowcases will be needed.

Angel Quilt

The quilt top is finished. It is finished and awesome! Much thanks to Linda, Helen, and Peggy for their hard work on this project. Linda has volunteered to do the quilting; she will take the quilt to the Jill Schumacher workshop she is attending in June to get some ideas. Thank you, Linda!


Show & Tell

Randi took two workshops from Janet Fogg, a well-known "art" quilter, and she highly recommends them. Janet gives the following advice for free-motion quilting: "Do what you're good at." Janet has mastered 7 patterns and combines those in different ways on her quilts. Randi continues with her free-motion quilting class with very impressive results!


Peggy is working on a cute "Art to Heart" calendar set. She has currently completed all the numbers and the months of May and June.


Peggy has new "toy" called a cutwork tool. It fits into where the needle goes on the machine, and it cuts out appliques or heirloom cutouts in the hoop. Peggy is becoming the master of all kinds of machine techniques and complicated software.



Linda made an adorable dress and hat for her 1-year old granddaughter. She also made some cheerful placemats for Margie.


Helen gave a table-runner to Randi. This is a complicated story, but I think it goes something like this. Helen originally gave the table runner to Carol, but then Carol returned it because the colors didn't work in her house. Helen already had made one from the same fabric for herself, so she gave it to Randi, who had always admired the fabric.


During May, Peggy traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii. While there, she visited Kimura's Fabrics, an old, funky fabric shop, and she brought back fat quarters for the Bees.


Geraldine

Our mascot bee, Geraldine, is going to travel with Margie to Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. She is the Bees' version of "Flat Stanley." Margie will compile the saga of Geraldine's adventures when she returns home. Geraldine attends our meetings and travels home with a quilter each month to be part of the action.


Monday, May 23, 2011

April 2011 Meeting

Attending: Peggy, Dawn, Helen, Linda, Margie, Randi, Tricia

We had Dawn's delicious tortellini soup and Peggy's yummy spinach salad with strawberries and her own homemade dressing. Peggy also brought homemade bread. For dessert, we had delicious chocolate/raspberry ice cream bars, courtesy of Linda. Dawn brought her soup recipe, and it will be sent out to the group shortly.

Flat Stanley attended our Bees' meeting this month courtesy of Randi. He has gotten around a bit in Northern Nevada and will soon be on his way back to California.

Business

Our basket for the quilt show is due soon, and Randi is taking on the responsibility of collecting the items and making the basket. Everyone made their own arrangements for getting items to Randi by the following week. Of particular note are the Longaberger basket and star shaped pottery donated by Peggy.

Randi passed around a handy sewing aid called "Quilt Your Heart Out." She is going to make 6 copies to bring to the next meeting.

The angel quilt will have the "Cancer Cannot" poem in the center. It will also be embellished with crystals on the halos. We discussed the idea of putting "in honor of Carol" on it somewhere.

Our 2011 Goals are now available on a separate tab at the top of the blog page. That should give quick, easy access to help us keep track of them.

Next Meeting

Tuesday, May 24 at Helen's (note change to the 4th Tuesday)

  • Main dish: Margie
  • Dessert: Dawn
  • Bread: Tricia
Peggy and Tricia will bring purse patterns and and samples of interfacing, batting, and notions needed to complete a purse. The purse workshop will be on Saturday, June 25 at 10:00 AM at the cooperative extension meeting room in Carson City.

Show and Tell

Dawn's son found an old, discarded quilt that was pretty badly damaged, shown in the photo on the left. Dawn made a copy of the quilt, which she is holding in the photo and called it "Almost Lost."


Randi and Dawn showed their challenge quilts from one of their other quilting groups. Randi's is called "Remember the Price of Freedom"; Dawn's is "Ahh, to Be Free."


Peggy completed one of her Project Dragonlord quilts.


Other miscellaneous projects. I apologize for not having better notes, ladies. I will try to write down more details in my minutes at future meetings.


Respectfully submitted,
Tricia