Charity sewing day!

Today we had an awesome and productive day! Several guild members volunteered their Sundays to sew up baby quilt tops for The Center for Great Expectations.


From left to right: Carol, Helen, Kathleen, Beth, Elaine, Krishma, Susan, Neva, me, Laura, and Robin. Lori was also there and took the picture! Krishma, our philanthropy chair, already finished 7 quilts (!) on her own, and Jess Levitt finished one - great job, ladies and thank you everyone so much for your time, fabric, and expertise! A special thanks to Krishma, Susan, Elaine, and Robin who sorted through, cut, and put together kits of donated fabric. This was only possible because of you!

Robin painstakingly embroidered these labels - aren't they perfect? Thanks Robin!

We will soon message all guild members about the next step in the process. We look forward to donating 20 quilts in November (before winter) so we will need volunteers to quilt and bind the remaining quilts.

In the meantime, here are some action shots. We love sewing at the Hopewell Train Station - the space is perfect, people from town pop in, and we can walk to lunch!

 Helen's quilt top:

Laura's quilt top:

-Jess S.

Recap: June Meeting

June was our first of two meetings this summer (reminder: no July meeting, but there will be one on August 12).

Upcoming Events:

-Quiltcon MQG Member Registration - 11 am EST,  June 24 (tomorrow). General public registration - July 1. Quilt show entry - July 1 to Nov. 30

-Charity Sewcial – Sunday, June 29 – charity sewing event, Hopewell Train Station. Member, see supply list and RSVP here. Come sew with us (you will be given fabric and instructions) for the Center of Great Expectations! We are still accepting donations of yardage (1 yard min.) of solid colors to help us put the quilts together. You can also choose to take a quilt kit home from the sewcial or from a meeting to work on, or make your own 40x50" quilt to donate at the end of the year. Finally, you can make a monetary donation to the guild for solid fabric and supplies. Thanks to Sue, Robin, Krishma, and Elaine for all of their hard work.

-Guild Retreat at the Hyatt House in Bridgewater – Friday, July 18 @ 12pm – Sunday, July 20 @ 8pm. Members - $55 for the sewing room for the weekend, non-members - $70. Send your checks to me ASAP - you can email me or check the BigTent forum (members) for my address.

 Food is not included though there is a free hotel breakfast. You can leave all of your equipment set up for the three days (room will be blocked at night). Instructions for room reservations and pricing are on the BigTent invite. It is going to be a blast - please join us!! There are no structured projects, just bring whatever you're working on and get lots accomplished with no interruptions. Stuck or need help? Bring it, because there's always someone to help. Also, if you are looking for a roommate, check the BigTent invite above to see if someone else is looking!

-Michael Miller Challenge – due July 25. Take a great picture and post it on the MQG forum to be eligible for 1 of 3 big prizes (a year of fabric!). See this blog post for directions on how to post your photo. Please bring your finish to the August meeting so we can see it! Our guild challenge (optional) is curved piecing.

-Picnic/Joint Meeting with the Philly MQG - Saturday, July 26, the pavilion at Tyler State Park, PA, 12-4. Families welcome – they can do activities on the lawn while we do sew-y things. We will be doing a small swap with the other guild – any kind of modern quilted pouch! We would love for lots of people to participate in this! Bring a show and tell (Michael Miller challenge, perhaps?) and food – the BigTent RSVP is here and you must also sign up on the Google form. We can carpool from PQW. Come and enjoy a beautiful day!

-Jacquie Gering – free lecture/trunk show for CJMQG members - Fri., August 22 @ 6:30 (setup/social/shop), 7 pm start.

-Jacquie Gering Slice and Insert Workshop - ALMOST FULL - $80 for members, $95 for nonmembers. 10-6 on Aug 24th at the Hyatt House in Bridgewater. Email me for my address if you need to send a check. Here's the RSVP (if you are a member you must RSVP AND send the check).

-General Announcements:

 -New Event section on the Bigtent Forum for members – please post any sewing eventsyou are involved with/know of in the tri-state area. You can announce them at meetings, too.

- Please enjoy our giveaway table and feel free to donate.  However please don't bring very large items and please only bring quilter's cotton fabric (or the kind of designer home décor or laminate etc. sold in quilt shops).

-Meetings will now start with social time from 6:30-7! No obligation to come, but this is a great time to catch up with friends, get to know others, and shop at PQW. Hopefully this will make our breaks a bit less stressful and will help us get to know each other better!

-Guild QAL – We are following Modern Monday at 42quilts.com. Try to make your blocks  into a top by the end of the year! If people wanted to donate their tops to the guild charity initiative, we could have quilts to start for the next year. Just a thought. Whatever your purpose, let’s try to get the quilts done!

-Guild bee – we have 11 members, starting in August with Amy. Consider giving your bee mates a theme instead of a specific block to allow for their creativity (though you can do it either way!). Some theme examples: triangles, circles, flying geese, half-square triangles, a certain color, etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Meeting:  

Thank you to Kathleen Stanish for the minutes and Carol Esch and Janet Bergman for pictures!

Thank you to Tatiana for making this gorgeous swap bag for our guild!

-This month's ice breaker – If you were to switch fabric stashes with someone, who would it be and why? Members mentioned fellow guild members and also "legendary" quilters.

Quilty shoes!

-Presentation - Jan, owner of Pennington Quilt Works, discussed Quilt Market and showed us samples of Cotton and Steel's new fabrics. She will be ordering some for the shop and sought opinions on what to order.

-Swap – 3 members made summer table top items and swapped them!

 

-Discussion – Binding – in a show of hands, several more members preferred hand-stitching their binding to machine stitching. We discussed preference of binding techniques and filling out the binding.

-Show and Tell

Janet and Elaine showed off their blocks from our Guild QAL for the year (Modern Mondays @ 42quilts.com):

 

 

 Lee

 

 Cala

 

 Our guests had beautiful, vibrant quilts to show us!

 Cathy

 Kathleen Stanish

 Jess S.

Amy

Janneke

Lori

Carol E.

---------------------------------------------------------

AUGUST MEETING

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 6:30 (social/shop time), 7pm-9:30

Pennington Quilt Works 

-Presentation/Discussion - Blogging/Instagram/Social Media and Quilts – Jess S.

-Spotlight – anyone interested should contact me.

-Challenges: Bring in your Michael Miller challenges! Use your low volume swapped fabrics from earlier in the year - challenge - you can bring your creation in from August to September.

So looking forward to a busy and quilty summer with you all!!

Jess S.

How to enter the Michael Miller Challenge contest

The Michael Miller Challenge ends July 25! If you want to enter the contest to win free fabric for a year (!), here's how:

1. Sign into the Modern Quilt Guild website and click the link below:
https://community.themodernquiltguild.com//groups/finished-michael-miller-fabric-challenge-0

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see a text box. 

3. The last icon on the top bar is the "add media" button - click that.

4. Click browse to get your picture from the computer, and click upload. 

5. Type the size of your quilt and anything you want to say about it in the text box with the now-uploaded picture and hit "post." 

 That's it! Nothing else is necessary to be entered in this international contest. Good luck! Remember, you can use any brand solids and only Michael Miller prints.

Bring your MM challenge to the get together with the Philly guild the next day! :)

-Jess