July 2011 Meeting

We met at Helen's house and shared a delicious dinner of Helen's taco salad, Linda's stuffed jalapenos, and Randi's strawberry shortcake with homemade biscuits. Yum! Former member Rachael (Linda's daughter) also joined us for this meeting. She is visiting with her children from Washington.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be a "packing party" at Randi's house. Note the change in day and time as well.

• Tuesday, August 9 at 4:00 PM at Randi's

As discussed at the meeting, please bring your LARGE suitcases -- at least 26 inches. Here is the suitcase count from the meeting: Margie - 2, Rachael - 2, Linda - 1, Helen -2, Peggy - 1, Randi - 1. That should be enough, but there was uncertainty about whether some of the suitcases would be big enough, so extra large suitcases would be welcome in case they are needed.

After the hard work of packing up all the quilts, the Bees will treat themselves to going out to dinner.

DragonLord Business

Final Count: 73 military children will receive quilts made with love by quilters from across Northern Nevada. Randi has been collecting the quilts, and her house is overflowing. Although a lot of work, this project has been a privilege and a blessing, and we learned many things from the experience. Although Randi is the first one to say she didn't know what she was getting us into, all of us are proud of this major accomplishment and are particularly grateful to Randi for her unflagging leadership and for our wonderful group of Bees who are giving our all to finishing up the project.

Here are just a few of the quilts that will be donated to the DragonLord children.

Quilt Packing and Delivery: As mentioned in the "Next Meeting" section of this month's blog, the quilts will be packed into large suitcases and hand-carried to Nashville by Randi, Linda, Peggy, and Helen where they will be distributed to the children. Southwest Airlines has generously donated four round-trip tickets, and their free, two-suitcase baggage policy is making the trip possible. The journey will begin on August 17 and last through August 22. Linda's daughter Molly, who has been an integral part of the project, will be opening her home to the quilters and has planned some fabulous activities for the quilters to experience Nashville and the surrounding area during their trip.

Purse Workshop

Here are the cute "mini-messenger bags" made by some of the Bees at the June purse workshop. This pattern can be easily made in less than a day. It has lots of pockets and ends up being a very practical as well as attractive purse. The strap hardware gives this bag a particularly professional, finished look. More purses to come next month!

June 2011 Meeting/Workshop

In June, rather than a regular meeting, we had a purse workshop instead with Randi, Linda, Helen, Margie, Peggy, and Tricia attending. Dawn and Carol were not able to come, and we all missed them.

Next Meeting

Tuesday, July 19, usual time and place with food volunteers as follows:

• Helen: Taco salad
• Linda: Stuffed jalapenos
• Dessert: Randi

Workshop

With all the time spent at the previous meeting selecting patterns, everyone to a person, chose a different pattern. Peggy, Tricia, Margie, and Helen all made the "mini messenger bag," and Linda and Randi both made zipper bags, each from a different pattern. Everyone made good progress with Peggy and Helen finishing their mini-messengers. By our July meeting, hopefully everyone will bring their finished bags so we can take photos.

Tricia shared some deviled eggs as an afternoon snack. The recipe is available on the blog's recipe page.

Dragonlord Business

Many of us brought our finished Dragonlord quilts. Several are still in the works, and some that were collected from other groups are being finished by Bees members. A new deadline will be discussed at our next meeting. Still pending is a method for shipping all the quilts. Peggy suggested that volunteers could take on shipping and paying for 5-7 quilts each. Apparently UPS will give us an 80% discount if we ship over 150 pounds. We're not sure how much the finished quilts will weigh or of the criteria for packaging to take advantage of that possibility.

Peggy and Tricia made quilts for sisters. Peggy's girls are 2 and 5; Tricia's are 6 and 8.

Helen really outdid herself! What a lucky little boy!

Randi also shared with us a beautiful prize-winning quilt she made for her son.