guild activities
All the programs/activities run by our Amherst Museum Quilters Guild, and other guilds in our area.
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February 24, 2015
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Do you consider yourself to be a dedicated quilter? Every 2 years or so the organization Quilts in America funds a survey of quilters across the US to find what a dedicated quilter is about. I’m sure that manufacturers and retailers find this information useful in planning their focus. The amount of money spent on quilting is comparable to, (and I’ve heard but can’t find the citation for you) and has been at times more than, the money spent on golf! Have a look at this summary of the survey results to see where you fit. In many aspects, but not all, I fit the profile. My one concern about this, if you can call it that, is the average age of dedicated quilters. I won’t go into the math of averaging data, but it does tell us that we are an aging group. The […]
January 16, 2015
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Last night we had our annual auction at our quilt guild meeting. Throughout the year member’s earn “quilt bucks” by getting involved in our guild’s activities. Basically it is monopoly money, but it has been a successful motivator for many of our members. For example, one might earn 5 bucks for making a block for our charity committee, or 10 bucks for sewing the binding onto a charity quilt. We have a few guidelines for amounts to be awarded, but each chairperson has some leeway as well. Bucks are then saved by the members throughout the year to be used to buy items at our annual January auction. Items for the auction are donated by members. It’s a good chance to clean out our sewing rooms of excess fabric, kits, patterns, UFO’s etc. This auction is certainly an example of the cliche that “one man’s […]
October 16, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It’s now official. Nancy Mahoney will be our national teacher for the 2016 quilt seminar. She is in all the quilt publications, so I’m sure that even if you’re not familiar with her name you have certainly seen some of her work. Here’s a link to her blog. Go explore and get to know a bit about her. Please be thinking about what you’d like to see in the open years in between our seminars, instead of a seminar. I’ll be asking for ideas in the months ahead.
October 3, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. How do you find inspiration for your next quilt project? Here’s a link to quilts made for a challenge from Cherrywood hand dyed fabrics was to use 3 “wicked” greens from their 2014 line and make a quilt inspired by “Wicked”. It’s the 11th anniversary of the show “Wicked” in NYC, so many chose their inspiration from there, but other worked from the meaning of the word itself. Good theme for Halloween season, isn’t it? click here (if you dare!) How are your seminar projects coming? I hope you enjoyed yourself and learned a least one new thing. Those are the goals of seminar. We’re working on getting our national teacher lined up for 2016, and hope to announce the name at the next guild meeting. Bring those completed (tongue in cheek) projects for show and tell in October.
September 16, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Got any spare fabric around? (LOL!) It could be used for gift wrapping instead of paper. In this video the demonstrator also suggests silk scarves. I don’t know about you, but I have many of those just sitting in a drawer from my working days. I often wore a basic T or light weight sweater and put a scarf on to jazz it up, or to make it match a particular skirt or slacks. Although scarves are coming back, they aren’t the same style as the ones in my drawer (of course not, that would be too easy). I think this fabric wrapping would be particularly nice on gifts for your fabric loving friends. Much better than paper that ends up discarded. See what you think. It looks quite easy to me. Click here. Here’s another gift wrap idea for using up smaller pieces from […]
September 12, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Spent some time at the BNHV yesterday getting folders stuffed for our seminar attendees. I spoke on the phone with Bonnie Hunter while I was there. We thought we had a book order missing, but it was found after we heard from Bonnie who had signed for it. It had gotten tucked away into an unused office for safe keeping. Bonnie’s in Alaska right now, doing her schtick for the guild in Ketchikan. As she always does, pictures are posted on her daily blog. (Make sure you do your hair and put on lipstick if you’re coming to our seminar. You may get a moment of fame on her blog if you’re in a class of hers) Yesterday Bonnie explored the town and spent time in a brand new library. Check out the cool art work in the library and be sure to go all […]
September 9, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Busily getting the last of seminar preparations completed. Fielding lots of e-mails from those quilters coming from a distance. Where to stay? Where to eat? Are there quilt shops near by? Where else can we shop? Those are the FAQ’s for this week I think! As I’ve gone through my own e-mail each day, I’ve just copied and pasted a few links that I think might be of interest to you. No time to do much more than that these days. I hope I’ll see you at seminar! funky stuffed pumpkins click here found this via a Facebook friend, I have heard several of these comments after demos I have given. Yikes. And BTW what are quilting chakras? Every comment on every quilt blog ever: click here. beautiful star quilt, perfect for featuring a collection of fat quarters or for using up scraps: click here.
July 24, 2014
Hi everyone, I took me a while but finally getting around to post photos of our July’s meeting Show and tell! I don’t know about you, but I really LOVE meetings like we had in July – with fun demos! As much as I loved doing a demo, I would have loved to see the others too, but I hope you all had fun? If anyone needs any help with that Quick Curve Ruler or the pattern I showed – just let me know! Thinking of it now…I might do a quick “pictures tutorial” here, so you all have a “refresher” ?? What do you think – yes or no? Anyone already made a few Christmas projects after that? 🙂 He… he… I always, always say that I will start early but so far that didn’t happen much… Maybe this year? Well I will finish those Poinsettia pillows, so that […]
May 9, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Bonnie Hunter, our fall seminar teacher, has been on the road quite a bit lately. I’ve subscribed to her blog feed and was so jealous of the seminar she gave at Mackinac Island. An absolutely gorgeous setting, both in the Grand Hotel (grand in every sense of the word), and the naturally grand setting around the island. I would love to go there. The seminar was actually a needlework seminar (not just quilting) so other needle arts were featured as well. I think I’ll put that one on my bucket list. Click here for one of her posts about the island. A while ago Bonnie filmed a segment with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims to be shown on their internet based The Quilt Show. Here’s a slide show of some of Bonnie’s bits. Click here. Registration for our seminar is going well. We have 2 […]
April 25, 2014
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Every now and then I run across a quilt that I know I would never ever make. And here’s a clip featuring one of them. I like the original name for it: Insanity! I know that many traditionalists will absolutely love this quilt; we have a separate category in our guild shows for quilts of this type. I appreciate the workmanship, the precision, the patience but as I said…Insanity! click here