Make sure all quilters have used it before and offer suggestions on how to work with this product, if needed. If time permits, also discuss possible quilting patterns. No one should feel obligated to use a plan devised with a 10 or 15 minute time limit. The point of the exercise is to learn some techniques from others, see how others think during the creative process, and talk to the others.
In preparation for the meeting, simple fortune cookies can be made by taking two fabrics that are fused together with lightweight fusible. Using a tacking stitch 0 stitch length on machine or with needle and thread yikes! Note where the folded edge is on each side, pinch these two points together and make another tacking stitch.
To make the fortune cookie, fold it in half. Make a tacking stitch midway along the curved edge. Where it is now folded, grab both folded edges with your thumbs and bring the edges together; make a tacking stitch right there.
Slip a fortune inside and it is done. I have included a list of stray quotes. I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings. Gustave Flaubert.
Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder. Carl Sandburg. To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. Emily Dickinson. I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. Hamlin Garland. I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun. Pablo Picasso. Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things. One generation plants the trees under whose cool shade another generation rests. Chinese Proverb. Max Frisch.
We decided, when our grandson was 6 months old, that we would pull up stakes and move three and a half hours from Memphis to help our son and watch our grandchild grow-up. I am glad we did, would not have it any other way, but it was an amazing change in our life.
I had a group of ladies that — unbelievably — I met and sewed and laughed and art quilted with every Monday for seven years!
When I moved, it was like leaving the thinking half of my brain behind. I remembered seeing an article in a magazine that would work! I asked each if they would make me a doll in their quilting style. They have a button on one side and a loop on the other side so I can loop them in a line together. I received them before I left and they are perfect for what I wanted!
I took a photo of each of them before I left. I ironed cotton fabric onto paper-baked fusible web. I printed their faces on the fabric in my inkjet printer. After cutting out the shapes of their faces and hair, I ironed it onto the fronts of their fabric shells.
Then, I stuffed them with snips of leftover cotton batting and placed a disk filled with crushed walnut shells and a disk of cardboard on the very bottom. Most of the time I keep them on the surface where I sew. I used to talk to them and ask their opinions of my projects, like old times until I started worrying that that was unhealthy : They are a balm that soothes when I miss their company.
I try to get back and see them times a years. So, sometimes they actually can answer back. If you are looking — like I was — for a way to keep your friends in your heart, check them out. These dolls might be an excellent guild exchange. My friends had to be reassured that I would NOT use them as pin cushions. If you break out of your solo act and join a quilt guild, you can reap the rewards of all their collective knowledge.
More good things look for my The Benefits of a Quilt Guild, Part 1 that you get from joining a quilt guild are:. A immeasurable benefit for going to a guild meeting is simple: the programs that are offered. During the meeting, there are usually a few things that occur. This is the bread and butter of the guild. Often, these are geared toward making the members better quilters.
This is where we learn stuff, have guest speakers and their trunk shows, work on charity quilt sit-and-sews, or present results of challenges or other group projects. By all means, if there is a guild challenge, participate! Challenges just that: they are meant to make us better. It is an opportunity for growth; many of us work better if told to do something outside the normal way we work. You are often given narrow guidelines in size and sometimes color or theme is well defined.
It is at the same time helpful to be provided some of the design and limiting because it holds you to restrictions. Planning and constructing a quilt quickly, with a challenge deadline, is another chance to advance our quilt expertise.
It trains us to relinquish self-doubt when beginning quilting projects so that we learn to trust our instincts. A similar benefit of guilds is that members usually share lists of upcoming quilt contests with their entry dates and deadlines.
It is amazing, these networks that form from members of one guild who were once member of another guild and the passing back and forth of these events between old friends.
Take advantage of these to get your work out there. If you are hesitant, start locally. If you get accepted to a local fair or a national show, the joy you experience is uniquely personal. As a guild member, you will also be made aware of opportunities to attend these quilt shows in case you ever want to overdose on eye candy.
Many guilds arrange buses or car caravans for day trips or longer to see quilt shows. You may ride or even fly and take in a small or large event. The sheer volume of people is amazing and the number of vendors especially in Houston is irresistible, but the quality of the quilts in the show are awe-inspiring. And, stimulating to those right brain juices.
If the trip allows, you can take classes while at these larger shows as well as some of the smaller venues. That experience is second to none when it comes to your growth as a quilter.
You should not underestimate how a guild is a great, economical place to take quilt classes. Often, the members will be asked to teach a class. Likewise, it costs less to take a class from a nationally know teacher when they contract to teach for your guild; although you pay more for the class, you are still saving the food and lodging costs.
And, a really wonderful thing that guilds can offer is a retreat. Especially as a new member, a retreat is a wonderful opportunity to sit and sew next to different people to chat or just listen and occasionally comment. Meeting new people while eating the meals is always a nice way to become familiar with others. You could room with someone new to cement a new relationship.
You can see what kind of projects everyone likes to do. You can show others what kinds of projects you like to do, without having to say much yourself if you have trouble acknowledging your work in public, just by sitting and sewing. And, larger guilds arrange for nationally known quilters to be the main attraction, enticing members to sign-up for retreat so they can attend the classes but its not required of anyone.
My old guild was large so there was enough participation to do more things. They had national quilters come and teach classes and do trunk shows. They had both members and a national teacher hold classes during their 3 day retreat. They organized bus tours to Paducah. Several went together every year to Houston. It was a very dynamic group of both highly skilled and new quilters.
A lot of learning occurred. I have been going to my new guild for a few months. I held off for a while after I moved away from where I had lived for 30 years. I was busy with life my family, the move, my mom passed and I put it off. Maybe I'm a little bit this way, so I tend to participate in fabric swaps more often than block swaps. That way you can you can exchange with your friends but you have more control over the finished product.
April - Swirls, May - Flowers, etc. Have 12 people sign up to participate. Each month everyone brings 1 fat quarter that matches the theme for the month and puts it in a basket as they walk into the guild meeting. After all 12 fqs are in the basket, draw one of the participants' names to win those 12 fqs. The next month, everyone still contributes their fq's but the previous winner s names do not go into the draw to win.
Each participant will eventually win a fat quarter bundle at some point throughout the year. Encourage the participants to take no more than 12 months following their win to make a project with their 12 fqs. This is a nice way to get out of your comfort zone or simply get a good assortment of prints without having to purchase all of them. In , I participated in an online swap of tiny floral fabrics.
We were told how much fabric to buy, how to cut it to yield the necessary number of pieces, the hostesses shipping address and when to have it shipped to her by. She gave very specific instructions and rules and made sure there would be no duplicates. Then the host of the swap divvied them all up and shipped bundles of 42 assorted tiny floral 10" squares to each person.
A small fee was necessary to help cover return shipping. Here's the beautiful bundle of fabrics I received:. Present each swap participant with a beautiful photograph featuring an inspiring color scheme. Have everyone return the following month with enough fat quarters or whatever predetermined size pieces of fabric that features one of the colors pictured in the photograph. The assortment of fabrics they receive in the end should be a fun representation of the photograph it could be surprising, depending on what colors people chose!
Note, we did this swap in my local quilt guild. Everyone decided beforehand that they wanted to make my Fall Flowers quilt so after divvying up the fqs we also gave them the pattern. They chose their own background fabric and made their own quilts but the Fall Flowers were made with fabrics from the swap.
Block Swap Ideas. Invite a textile art professor to speak. Bring a variety of quilting supplies and notions threads, rulers, rotary cutters, etc. Have members bring their favorite quilting book and tell why. Have a machine quilter bring her machine and demonstrate how it works, telling how she determines what to charge, what to quilt, etc.
This could drum up a little business for her too! Set up several stations with a demonstration at each flying geese, prairie points, hand quilting, chain piecing, basting, marking, hand and machine applique, embellishing, half and quarter-square triangles, rotary cutting, etc.
Have a local art teacher come to explore a design idea. Invite a lawyer to talk about copyright laws. Have a charity quilt work night. Divide the guild into groups of 10, giving each group a paper and pencil and a first preferably wild and whacky line to a story. Each group incorporates as many different quilt block names as possible in writing its story. Prizes are given for the most improbable, the greatest of block names used, etc.
Have a general discussion about how members got involved in quilting. You get a clean pizza box lined with acid-free tissue, put in a pattern, fabric, whatever…and a book to write in.
Write down the directions of the type of block you want people to make for you. At the end, you get your box back and it is filled with surprises.
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