March Sewing Day Recap

Good morning everyone,

Have you all recovered from our St. Patty's Day frat house blowout?!?

For those of you that weren't there, you missed a great time, though honestly no green beer was involved (I did notice some St. Paddy's Day themed cookies...). Anna was our lovely host, and we were all envious of the long tables she has access to for basting! Of course, we filled every inch of those tables on Sunday...



There was a lot of "farming" going on.
Melinda's Farmer's Wife Block

As well as some teeny tiny piecing... (I believe these are 3"x3"!)

Anna's Micro Butterflies

And a great Show and Tell full of inspiration. This is really only scratching the surface of some of the wonderful finishes some people shared. Go check out the Flickr group to see more!

Melinda's Farmer's Wife Quilt

Susan's Anna Maria Horner Quilt from QuiltCon
Karin's Table Runner
Melinda's Neighborhood
Amy's Scrap Vomit
Jess's Baby Quilt
Anna's Shades of Grey Quilt (yes, we asked how many shades... fewer than 50!)
We even learned that one of our new attendees, Katy (or Katie?) recently purchased a long-arm machine and may be open to letting some of us take it for a spin. Katy, don't be surprised if you receive a lot of bribes "welcome to the group" gifts next time!

Elle also had some announcements from QuiltCon. In general, these probably deserve their own post and more discussion than I can provide here, but here's the gist:

  • The Modern Quilt Guild umbrella organization will begin formalizing membership. The two options for membership are 1) through a local chapter (~$15 per year) or 2) an individual membership ($25 per year). 
  • Over the next few months, we'll have ongoing conversations about whether our group is interested in pursuing the membership option. There are benefits to membership beyond just the legitimacy that would come with affiliation with the parent organization (membership tracking tools, discounts on MQG events, 503(c)(3) status). To take advantage of these benefits, we'd need to do more than shell out the $15 a year - we'd need to have bylaws, incorporate, set up a bank account, and more formalized leadership. These are not insurmountable, but would require additional interest from people willing to step up and lead/put in the hours.
In other news:
  • Our next meeting is scheduled for April 27th, a sewing day at Westover Library.
  • Our May meeting is currently scheduled for the 18th at Capital Quilts. Beginning in May, Capital Quilts will charge us for using their space. The total cost for the group is $50 total, so plan to bring some cash if you attend in May. Note: If you made a purchase from Capital Quilts when you were there last month, please email dcmodquilts at gmail dot com to let us know how much you spent. We want to make sure they understand the value of a captive audience in their store!
See you all next time!
~Heather

Edited to add:

We'd like to give a special thank you to Quilter's Dream for supplying all of our participants with samples of their wide variety of batting, along with wonderful door prizes!  We really, really appreciate your generosity! Katie, one of our new attendees, won a throw-sized batting of Quilter's Dream Green, a soft, cozy batting made of 100% recycled plastic bottles.  We know she'll put it to good use with her new long-arm machine!  In addition, Lynne won a fat quarter of Kaffe Fassett fabric that I received at QuiltCon.  We also gave away a very cool pattern from our friend Deanne with Creative Sewlutions (and I'm totally blanking on who won...please tell me in the comments and I'll edit this!)  Finally, Jessie showed off the first addition to our guild library - Dreaming in Color by Kaffe Fassett that we won for an essay that Jessie wrote for the Modern Quilt Guild.  We'll have many more wonderful donated door prizes at upcoming meetings!  Thanks to everyone who has contributed and to everyone who came to our meeting - we love having you share your talents and friendship!  -Elle