What a fun time last night. A special note of thanks and appreciation to Arlene Wickman and Jeanne Hall who were gracious enough to let us in a little early and helped coordinate a late breakdown when we were done. The first meeting of the year always seems to be jam packed, but we are off to a good start.
For those who didn't make it and for all of you who are waking up this morning trying to remember where to go to connect and find everything we talked about last night, here is a summary complete with links to help you.
I don't know about you, but Jean Wakely's presentation was fascinating. The quilts the stories, all of it was just so inspiring and informative. If you would like to learn more you can visit her website The Story Quilt Project.
The October Book Club Program is dependent on guild members wanting to share quilt books that have impacted their quilting journey. If you would like to share a current or past quilting book that has inspired you, please contact Vice President, Jewell Kodilla. It doesn't need to be long, just 5 minutes that way we can have several and if this is a hit we may do it again.
Quilt Show
A BIG thank you to Sue Olinger for stepping up to the plate to lead the charge on planning and executing our next quilt show! COVID really put the kibash on every which way we tried to make a quilt show happen, but now we are in a better position to navigate this new world we live in. Stay tuned as Sue gets things lined out and we will update you soon.
Get Involved!!!
Our website is the best place to find all the information you need to get involved with the guild, find classes in Missoula to attend and find just the right group to connect with and share your skills in our Missoula community. Just hover over GET INVOLVED on our main menu and select the group you want to learn more about.
Quilts 4 Kids will be hosting an Open House on Saturday, October 8th. Come see where they meet, what they do and find out more about how you can get involved. This is a busy group of ladies making quilts for children in crises in Missoula County. Quilts 4 Kids gave out 298 quilts for June, July, and August alone!
If your passion is for our veterans when Quilts of Valor would love to recruit you to help them. This is a wonderful group of women who make gorgeous patriotic themed quilts and then then coordinate giving them to combat veterans across Montana.
Comfort Quilts makes and donates quilts to those experiencing the ravages of cancer. Sally Wright announced she will be stepping down as Comfort Quilts coordinator and we are happy to report we have someone who is willing to help. We would like to see Comfort Quilts evolve into a committee organized endeavor as it is too much for one person to manage alone. If you are interested in learning more about how you can help with Comfort Quilts, click HERE and let us know.
Sally Wright generously gifted her professional AccuQuilt cutter and dyes to the Sew Fly Studio so that it could be better utilized and live in a space where it could be easily used. So for any of our community service groups who would like to use it to prep kits, please contact me directly to set up a time to come and put it to good use. Furthermore, the Sew Fly Studio now has a Gammill Classic Plus rental long arm which will be made available for FREE one day each month for each service group who would like to use it to quilt up their donation quilts. Contact Vida Anderson directly if you are interested.
Joyce Auer reported the pillow committee delivered 200 pillow tops this summer as was requested for Camp Make a Dream. They currently have about 100 to use for next year that members have already contributed. Members can continue to make pillow tops that measure 14 1/2" raw and are children themed. She also reported that 25 quilts were delivered this summer to Tamarack Grief Center to be used for their camp. Quilts 4 Kids provided these and they were made a larger size to accommodate the participants.
Sew Days is up and running on all cylinders, so come join us for fun, fellowship, sewing and yes some food! The next Sew Day will be September 24th.
Challenges
We announced our new Challenges last night. Apologies that we didn't have everything ironed out smoothly on communicating the details, but here you go.
Quarterly Challenge - Service Project
Our Quarterly Challenge is going to double as a guild wide community service project. Thank you to Shirley Frank for this suggestion. It's a great way for you to use your stash while making something fun and easy to gift to Meals on Wheels for the upcoming holidays. This challenge will end with our December meeting at which time we will collect all the place mats to deliver to Meals on Wheels. Between now and then, bring them each month even if it hasn't been quilted so we can show them off on the challenge wall and inspire the rest of us.
Quilt Challenge
Our 2022-2023 Quilt Challenge involves making a lap size quilt using a ruler you HAVE NEVER USED. So get that ruler you that is still wrapped in plastic, use this as an excuse to buy a new one or swap with a friend. The added challenge is to use the 2022 Pantone Color of the Year - Very Peri somewhere in the quilt.
UFO Challenge
Do you have UFO's (unfinished objects)? After receiving some feedback and suggestions regarding the UFO Challenge we've made some changes that will hopefully inspire you and also expand our tent to include more participants. New for the UFO Challenge is that quilt tops will be accepted. There are two prize categories; one for completed quilts (quilted and bound) and one for completed quilt tops. And remember out service groups love receiving completed quilt tops, so if you've lost interest in that quilt project, finish it up, put it on your UFO list and donate it.
Bee Sewcial
It's time to disturb those hives for another round of Bee Sewcial. As I said last night, we are thrilled that everyone is having a good time with their current Bee Sewcial groups, but staying with the same group completely defeats the purpose of Bee Sewcial. When I was first asked to serve as president the number one suggestion I heard was, "You gotta figure out a way for people to get connected." Bee Sewcial has been a huge success, but in order for it to continue to be successful we have to keep meeting new people. And there is no rule saying you can't keep meeting with your new friends. We just need to you be open to meeting and making some more new friends!
We will be cutting off the sign ups at the end of September so we can get everyone assigned to a new group and let you know so you can begin meeting in October. And since we saw a lot of nodding heads at the suggestion to have this new round of groups meet for the year we will open sign ups again next August. So these new groups will begin meeting in October and run through May.
Education & Training
Our local shops and teachers are hosting classes for every level of quilter as well as interest. You can find a list on our EVENTS PAGE. Remember, shop sponsored classes are run by the shops, we just help them spread the word. So all registrations go through the shops and benefit the shops and teachers 100%.
Samples from upcoming classes:
The ETC (Education and Training Committee) Surveys are on their way to the committee. They will have a report for us at our October meeting and we will begin to see Guild Sponsored Classes available. Stay tuned for more.
Whew, that was a lot!!!! I was awake at 4 AM this morning with my head instantly full of all the things I needed to remember to post. So I thought this would be the best way to get all of you the information about everything we talked about last night. No doubt I've left something out and if so I'm sorry. Before you feel sorry for me that I was up so early, I got to go to Hand Stitchers this morning at Goin' Quilting so that was really nice. And let me tell you it was hoppin' with Wanda's big sale, so if you haven't made it over there yet, be sure to stop by. We are so lucky to have such great local quilt shops.
Thank you again to all of you for making our guild so amazing. We are looking forward to a great year.
Happy Quilting!