Amherst Quilters Guild

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I hope you were able to come to BNHV last weekend to enjoy our long awaited quilt show. The quilts, as always were lovely and showcased the talent of so many of our members. Here’s a list of all of the award winners if you are interested. 2022 show awards. As I was doing my tours as a white glove lady I had questions about not having a program for the show. Sadly I had to answer that with so many fewer members and volunteers the scope of our show had to change. Please think about joining again if you didn’t renew your membership, and about getting involved on a committee or two. While chatting and admiring the quilts the fabulous long arm quilting on many of the quilts came up frequently. We thought that perhaps we could gather the names and specialties of quilters […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’m very pleased with the number of blocks and projects that have been donated toward our Sunflowers for Ukraine project. I’ll bring some of them to the preview party so that you can see them and be inspired. Our next work session will not be until May, due to conflicts in my schedule and guild’s quilt show meetings. If you have blocks or projects to turn in, please bring them to the preview party or drop them off at the museum for me to pick up. Call ahead to the museum before driving out to make sure someone will be there to take them from you. As I’ve been trying to use scraps from my “collection” I’ve run into some problems with ravelled or ravelling edges on the pieces. I knew a few tricks but picked up some new hints in this video. Some are […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Yesterday was our first sale and raffle of sunflower projects for our Ukraine relief effort. Thank you to our volunteers who manned the sale table: Theresa Utz, Annette Meyer-Grunow, Rebecca Ribis and Jean Nicholson. We made $231.00 yesterday! A great beginning I think. We raffled off 3 projects and one winner returned her prize to us to raffle again (Theresa Utz won the table topper made by Mary Carroll LOL!). We have several more completed projects to use in our next raffle–folks seemed to like the idea of a variety of prizes to be won. The plans are for a minimum or 3 more raffles throughout the museum season–we can add more dependent on our productivity and success in sales of tickets at the museum events. Don’t forget about our work session this Thursday, March 31 from 10:00 – 2:00. The museum does not open […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Big holiday today for us—National Quilting Day! What quilty thing will you be doing today? Making a sunflower block? Sewing a binding? Picking out a new project? Passing on a quilt to a loved one? Cuddling up under a cozy quilt with a cup of tea and a good book? All good ideas…do you have any other good ideas for us? Add them in the comments!  

Hello all, Mary Ellen here, We had a very productive planning meeting this week. I’m so happy that many ladies are participating in this project. Everyone is welcome to contribute as much or as little as you are able. Lots of completed blocks were shared at the meeting. I’m working on my first project with sunflower blocks, aiming to have a completed project to use for publicizing our raffle ticket sales at Maple weekend on March 27 at BNHV.  Here are a couple of shots of my favorite type of machine quilting. I like to use a serpentine stitch in a grid so I have very little marking to do. Have fun with this everyone and keep us posted on your progress! (The serpentine stitch helps to camouflage imperfections in the stitch in the ditch type quilting.)   These show block # 2 from the patterns shared previously on this […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’ve been working on sunflower blocks and made up this chart for myself. I find this easier that having the measurements in the midst of the text. Maybe some of you have a sewing style similar to mine and will also find it helpful.  cutting sunflower blocks

Hello all, Mary Ellen here.The patterns below are for the blocks we are hoping members will make and donate. I have included measurements to make most of the block units oversized to be trimmed down to exact measurements upon completion. This applies particularly to flying geese blocks and half-square triangles used in the blocks. If you have your own favorite methods which are different from those I’ve described in these patterns, of course feel free to use them. My only requests are that you use scrappy fabrics, and do your best to make accurately sized blocks so we can blend everyone’s blocks into beautiful projects. Don’t forget the planning meeting next week if you’d like to join us: Wednesday Mar 16 at 10:00 am in the BNHV ballroom. Block 1: Variation on Sunflower Power   click here: directions for alternate Sunflower Power block Block 2: sunflower block 2   directions :sunflower […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. At last night’s guild meeting we talked about the sunflowers project to raise money for Ukrainian refugee relief efforts. I will be posting the blocks and their patterns later today. I’m working on block 3-testing out my measurements and steps. I am so pleased that all 20 copies of the first 2 pattern that I had with me last evening were taken. I’m also trying to come up with an easy way for those making blocks to swap yellow fabrics with one another to make “scrappiness” easier. Also I’m going to check on the guild fabric stash and possibly accessing some yellow from there. If you would like to join us at a planning meeting mark your calendar: Wednesday March 16 at 10:00 am in the BNHV ball room. If you can not attend but want to be kept updated–as they say–watch this space! More […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’m pleased with the response to the sunflowers for Ukraine idea that I floated in my last post. Here are my tentative thoughts on how to go forward. I will be calling BNHV this morning to try to get a time soon when we could meet to talk over this project. My other guild (papercrafters) is not using our March meeting allotment, so hopefully I’ll be able to snag us a time. My tentative plan is for us to make an assortment of table runners, toppers and other small projects. When selling tickets for our guild’s bed size quilts I’ve been told different times that the quilt doesn’t match their color scheme, or that they don’t need a full size quilt. Hopefully summer/fall table pieces could find homes in many places. We’ll discuss if we want to do several small raffles or just sell them […]

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. If you’d like to make some sunflower blocks to remember Ukraine, here are some free patterns for relatively easy pieced blocks. Some are just photos, some include the steps. Would anyone like to contribute some blocks to make a project that we could use to make money to donate to a charity helping Ukranians? I’m thinking that since Ukranian refugees are expected here in Buffalo, we could keep our donation close to home. Let me know in the comments below if you’d be interested, and we’ll get together to plan. free patterns: click here  or here  or here If you search for “free sunflower quilt blocks” you’ll find lots of options.