January 2012 Meeting

The Bees met at Starbuck's on Hwy 50 in Carson City on January 24 with Randi, Linda, Peggy, Dawn, Margie, Helen, Tricia, and Rita attending. That's all of us, including Rita, and we are very happy to welcome her back!

  
We gathered around the coffee table, sipping our various beverages and enjoying the crepes that Dawn brought for a treat. We began the meeting by discussing goals, both those we completed in 2011 and our new goals for 2012. All accomplishments and goals are documented on the Goals page of the blog, which you can find by clicking the Goals tab along the top.
  
Service Project: We also discussed ideas for a service project and for a group activity. We decided to keep the service project simple this year, particularly because we (and especially Randi) are still recovering from last year's DragonLord project. We all agreed it was wonderful and worthwhile but that we'd like to keep it simple this year. We quickly and unanimously decided to make quilts for the local domestic violence shelter, Advocates to End Domestic Violence. We will make lap-sized throw quilts with the size, design, etc. being completely up to the quilter. The quilts should be finished by September and then either Dawn or Margie will contact the shelter and make arrangements to deliver the quilts.

Club Project: We also discussed the group activity or "club project" we want to do this year. Tricia brought up the idea of the "box quilt." Last year she thought that sounded like fun, and after seeing Carol's box quilt at the celebration of life, her interest was renewed. It seemed as though that thought and memories of the Bees' earlier times with Carol and other former members renewed the group's interest, and we again unanimously decided on box quilts as our club project. The concept is simple. Each quilter provides a box with fabrics she would like the other Bees to make into blocks for her. Each month, the boxes are exchanged at the meeting and brought back the following month containing another block. Block size should be 12.5 inches unfinished. We will start in February, and each Bee should bring a box to begin the exchange. It was suggested that quilters should initial their blocks inconspicuously with a permanent marker so that recipients will know who made what. Tricia will make a checklist of quilters' names to include in each box so that we can keep track of the rotation. Those of you who have box quilts from previous years are going to bring them to show the group.

Workshop: We discussed having Peggy teach a sweatshirt jacket workshop some time in September. Date and time to be discussed at a future meeting.

Next Meeting  

*** Tuesday, February 21 at Helen's house ***

Margie is going to invite Anita from the DAR.

Food: 

• Randi: Soup
• Linda: Appetizer
• Peggy and Dawn: Dessert
• Margie: Salad
• Helen: Quiche
• Rita: Bread

Show and Tell

I apologize that I don't have notes on the Show and Tell. I'll include what I remember, but please either post comments or send me details in email, and I'll add them to the blog.
  
For Christmas, Linda's daughter made placemats for Linda and her husband. They included drawings made by Linda's grandchildren. Randi made an "I spy" quilt, which she highly recommends as a fun quilt to make for children.

Dawn made a beautiful quilt and Margie made a cute Valentine's Day table runner for her father and stepmother.

  

Peggy also made a beautiful table runner that she quilted with the Jill Schumacher techniques of ditch-stitching and heavily quilting the background (in this case, microstippling, which doesn't show up in the photo) so that the primary design pops out. Peggy has also been experimenting with Zen doodling, a type of free motion quilting she learned from Paula Thompson. 

  

Peggy also made a really cute purse using a new flexible but shape-holding material. As usual, Peggy has been a busy Bee with projects this month. 

Rita, our resident art quilter, is planning to exhibit her quilts in June, and her goal is to have six finished by then. Here are three that she has completed. Rita dyes many of her fabrics and uses many techniques and materials to achieve texture and dimension.