Blog – Page 56 – Amherst Quilters Guild

April 30, 2012

Monday lunch post – or overdue Quilt Show photo-log

Hi everyone, yes, I did have a great ambition to post photos (even videos!) every night during our Quilt Show this past weekend, but every night after all other family happenings after the show I simply – crashed! My husband did catch me falling asleep with the laptop, pointed out the silliness, so I realized it ain’t going to happen. 🙂 Oh well, but today is a new day and here I am during my lunch break – ready to have some blogging fun and hope you will too, reading it. First of all, I have to say it again – IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRING AND FUN QUILT SHOW! BRAVO AMQG MEMBERS!! And equally as important – I want to express my heartfelt thank you to all volunteers at the show and all Museum staff, but specially all of you who helped with the Show set-up and take-down – […]

April 30, 2012

Kelly’s glorious speech

Hello all, Mary Ellen again. We all were so impressed by Kelly’s (Kelly Miller, the chairwoman of our quilt show) speech at our preview party. I am sharing it here with you. Thank you to Kelly for permission, and for providing the text. “Quilts, Glorious Quilts. It’s finally here! We made it to the show. All of the planning and preparation has come to an end and we get to enjoy the result of all our combined efforts. Quilts, Glorious, Quilts! What a truly grand name for a quilt show. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this show title when we first voted on it as a guild. I thought that maybe it was lacking a theme. No garden flowers, no sea of quilts, no artist’s palette, no theme… But that might be because I trained as a teacher and many teachers group their lessons by themes. However, then […]

April 30, 2012

Glorious Quilts

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. What a quilt show! The whole thing was glorious in my book. If you weren’t able to attend, the photos will be coming at our website (see sidebar) soon, and who knows what you’ll see right here at our blog in the near future. I saw Marija in paparazzi mode several times, and I know she is anxious to try out our guild YouTube channel (yep that’s right, she’s got us on YouTube!). Sincere thanks and compliments to all the members, particularly Kelly Miller the chairwoman, for our glorious show. Two years in the making and a spectacular success. Brava! If you are not a member of our guild, please consider joining us. You can go to the museum website (in our sidebar) to get info on how to join the museum, with an add-on guild membership. That would include all the perks of museum […]

April 29, 2012

quilter vibes

Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Wow! Our museum is just resonating with quilter vibes this weekend. So much conversation about quilting, fabric, threads, patterns, thimbles… Love it. A new quilt magazine for younger (or young thinking) quilters is going to be on the newstands in May. The editor is Mary Fons, daughter of MaryAnn Fons of Fons and Porter fame. You can go here to view a free mini issue to see if this magazine is something you, or someone you know, would like. I enjoy the shows on PBS that Mary does with her mom, now that Liz Porter is in semi-retirement. What did you buy at the quilt show this weekend? Or maybe I should wait until after the auction this afternoon to ask that question. I greatly reduced my fabric purchases from past habits, but did pick up some nice patterns and a kit or two. Questions […]

April 28, 2012

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. The canine and I have been back from our walk for a bit, I’ve had my coffee and yogurt and am getting ready for another day at our glorious show. It is a great morning for a walk. Chilly but no wind-once you get moving it’s no problem. The dog was scampering like a puppy-especially when I would not allow him to chase all the bunnies we encountered. Spent the whole day at the museum yesterday. Didn’t get to walk around much-that’s on today’s agenda. Talked with lots of ladies-it’s interesting how you can chat with a complete stranger about quilts as though you’ve known one another for a long time. Is that one of the things that makes quilts glorious? Lots of those I spoke with about the fabrics, mentioned that they don’t need to buy any more fabric because they have so much […]

April 27, 2012

what makes a quilt glorious?

Good morning all, Mary Ellen here. Soon I’ll be heading out to meet a friend at Timmy’s for breakfast and then to the museum for the first day of our show “Quilts, Glorious Quilts”. Indeed they are. I am awed every time by the work of our members, and a few non-members who also join in the show. (Gotta rope them into the fold!) Last evening’s preview party was wonderful. Kelly, our quilt show chair, finished her remarks with thoughts on what makes a quilt glorious. She graciously agreed to give me a copy of her speech so I can share it here. Of course she was a little busy (LOL) last night, so I don’t have it yet. In the next few days I’ll post it here, so we all can think a bit about our own ideas on “what makes a quilt glorious?” Does it have to be […]

April 25, 2012

Places, everyone!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It’s almost show time! I was out at the museum yesterday, dropping off a few things. I took a quick spin around our show; it is almost ready. You got a bit of a peek from Marija’s post earlier this week, but it’s much better in person. Love seeing everyone’s work up close. The new museum exhibit of Bobbie Fuhrmann’s life work (a former guild member) is quite impressive too. Beautiful lace and quilts in one woman’s work. She was amazingly talented. I never met Bobbie, except now through her legacy. Alice Bachraty’s exhibit (our guild’s founding mother) is worth the trip too. We can all appreciate Alice through our participation in the guild she loved so much. Today, I believe, is judging day. Personally the awards mean little to me-I pick out my own best of show and favorites. I have always loved and […]

April 24, 2012

Any gardeners out there?

Hello all, it’s ME. Just in case we ever get to dig in the dirt here’s something for the gardeners among you. Got my shoes muddy this morning looking around to see what survived the snow yesterday. The trillium which were gorgeous 2 days ago, are looking pretty sad this morning. And I think the jack-in-the-pulpits are a lost cause, I’m afraid. The later daffodils are iffy. What a strange weather year we’re having. I’ve heard it said that gardeners are eternal optimists, since we don’t usually see the fruits of our labors right away. I have a coffee mug that says “A garden is never finished.” Ain’t that the truth?! We’ve seen quilt gardens before-love the plantings arranged to look like quilt blocks. I think a feature telling exactly what plants were used to execute the garden is new though. I went to Nancy Zieman’s new website looking for […]

April 24, 2012

Setting up the quilt show

Hi everyone, I am catching a few minutes this morning, before heading to the Museum again to finish setting up the Quilt Show – just to show you some great photo-updates on how is everything going. Even though everyone knows it is a lot of work we really do have fun too! And despite the fact that I have been involved in show set-up for years now, it never ceases to amaze me how it all happens… It starts of course from great work of our Registration committee, working so well to accept all your entries in such an organized manner and immediately sort quilts by sizes or categories – making our job at set up so much easier – THANK YOU LADIES!! Then on Sunday – here is what we start from: Big, main room of the museum – looking kinda empty, scaffolding ready… Piles of bed-size quilts […]

April 23, 2012

what else do you like to do?

Hello again. I have too many hobbies for the amount of time I have to spend. (and I have the supplies to go with them!) Just found out that my retired painting teacher is coming out of retirement and will again be offering classes. I haven’t done much painting in about 5 years. I think it might be the Irish in me, but I had just been thinking about how much I used to enjoy painting, wishing I could find another good teacher, when her letter arrived in the mail inviting me back to her class! Somewhat spooky, but not the first time something like that has happened. I also enjoy rubber stamping-mostly making cards for myself to use and for Operation Write Home. Different, but related color skills, than those used in quilt making. Found this blog post at a site I’ve followed for a while now. I love, […]