Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

April Meeting Minutes and Photos


Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild Meeting
April 10, 2013
Centennial Barn



Opening
To begin our guild meeting, Jessica gave a fun 2-minute assignment to speak with someone we
don’t know and tell our oldest UFO.

Upcycle Challenge (sorry, we didn't get pictures of everything!)

Members who participated in April’s Upcycle challenge showed their creations:
• Janice had a vintage painting that became her “trash-to-treasure” project: an iPad holder.
• Christy turned an old pair of jeans into the cutest stuffed whale ever. She used an online
tutorial from Mevrouw Walvis at valaanvillapaita.blogspot.com.
• Christine made earrings out of a cream soda can and turned ladder yarn into a beautiful necklace.
• Teresa made a cosmetic bag from some fabric using the sashiko technique that she
learned at QuiltCon. The inside is upcycled from a shower curtain.
• Carole’s husband recycles old watches, so she made a watch band using scraps and
buttons.
• Ruth made a bag out of extra strips that she had left over from quilts, and the handles are
from dog leashes.
• Janine made an improv-pieced quilt out of hand-embroidered hankies she had purchased
on eBay.
• Jessica had a set of hand-embroidered table runners that she made into a bag to hold her
shit, appropriately embroidered “Shit.”
Next, the upcycle challengers played Spin the Sharpie to select two prize winners. And the
winners were … Janice, who won Sewing Green by Betz White, who teaches upcycling on
Craftsy; and Christy, who won a bale of cotton stuffing that Teresa received complements of
Brooks Brothers. Maybe Christy will make more cute whales?



IQF and Modern Meet-Up
Then we discussed the International Quilt Festival, here in Cincinnati through Saturday! Our
guild’s quilts, on the theme A Modern Spin on the Dresden Plate, are on display right inside of
the main entrance.

Our guild is excited to host our second Modern Meet-Up for IQF, Thursday, April 11, from
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Nicholson’s Pub downtown! We have tons of prizes from generous
sponsors to give away. We have reserved the front bar area and will be providing hors d’oeuvres
for everyone. A cash bar is available, as well as any menu items that guests would like to order.

Upcoming Events
The River City Quilt Guild has invited us to show modern quilts in their show in June in
Finneytown. If you have a quilt to display, they’d like to show something about the modern
quilting movement. They have big hanging racks to hang your quilts on. Jessica will send more
information via email.

Sew Original Quilt & Creative Expo has contacted Jessica and would like to display our
Ohio Star quilts from last year’s IQF show. The expo will be in Louisville from August 31 to
September 1. Jessica has a signup sheet for this. The expo will pay for shipping to and from the
show. There are no modern quilt guilds in Kentucky, so this would be a nice venue to promote
modern quilting. Also, 10–12 people are available and interested, we can have a manned booth
there for free throughout the weekend. Maybe we can get together in pairs and do shifts to cover
it. This could be a nice fundraiser for the guild.

Our next sew-in is Saturday, May 11, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This will most likely be at the
Madeira library due to the number of people who have shown interest in attending. The last sew-
in was a lot of fun, and we are looking forward to more of these throughout the year.

New member Kara Sanders would love to organize a shop hop for the guild. If you have a
vehicle that could be used for this, please send Kara an email at meandelna@gmail.com

The Ann Arbor (Michigan) MQG is hosting a retreat June 28–30 at the Hankerd Inn in Ann
Arbor … and they have invited our guild to their retreat! Email Brenda at justabitfrayed@gmail.com if you are interested. They need deposits this month.

Charity and Challenges
Andie has looked into many charity projects for our guild and has lined up a wonderful project
with Quilts of Valor, who makes quilts for veterans, an often overlooked group of people when it
comes to quilts for charity. More information will come on this.

Teresa explained next month’s challenge: Nametags. Make your own nametag for the guild using
our CMQG colors that are on our logo on our website.

New Business: Joining the National Modern Quilt Guild
After the break, Jessica and Heather explained some changes within the national Modern Quilt
Guild. The national guild is formalizing their organizational structure and has a window of time
for all of the local modern quilt guilds to join the national MQG. This means that our guild
would pay a certain sum to the national guild. By default, CMQG members’ dues would entitle
them membership into both the CMQG and the national guild.

The MQG did a lot of preparation for this and found that the three major areas that the
guilds across the country want are more organizational support, modern quilting education
opportunities, and 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The national guild had five guilds as a test group
last year, before rolling out this plan.

We are basically already functioning with their three main requirements: bylaws, officers, and
bank account. The cost is based on the size of the guild, which would be $400 per year for our
current size, or about $15 per person. We would have automatic 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
Another benefit is the national guild’s constituent relationship management system. Members
of the national guild would have access to organizational tools through their website, such as

online registration for events, access to announcements, membership information, and more. We
do have a website with a blog, but if we want more functionality on that site, we’d have to shell
out some money. Through the national website, we’d be able to send out e-newsletters; members
would sign in and have access to the CMQG info; we would also be able to easily locate and
contact other chapters.

The national guild also has Sew Downs planned, to which we would have discounted rates, as
well as discounted rates to QuiltCon, to other events, for other purchases. We would also have
access to certain challenges via the national guild, such as the Robert Kaufman Kona Solids
challenge that our guild participated in a couple years ago.

The change will begin in July of this year, with prorated dues for half a year; however, we can
also wait until January 2014 and pay a full year’s dues and take the time to raise money for this.
At the end of 2014 if we do not join, we would have to stop using the CMQG name and would
not have access to other MQG benefits.

We are so happy that all members present who spoke on this issue supported joining the national
guild! This limits our area of questioning to only when and how, not if.

The questions are, Do we charge members more dues? Do we have fundraisers, or raise the dues
slightly and combine it with fundraisers? Do we join in July of this year, which will give us
nonprofit status so that we could more easily raffle a fundraiser quilt for next year’s dues? Do we
get a booth at the Louisville quilt show and sell things that we make? Or sell at the Centennial
Barn’s fall sale to raise money?

We do feel strongly that we should do this, but the question is how to obtain the funds.

Several questions were asked:
Will we come up with board recommendations?
If we paid in July, could we do fundraisers this fall and see how much we need to set our dues at
for next year?
When we join, how soon will our tax-exempt status kick in?

Next month we’ll have ballots available so that we can vote on this issue. Don’t miss this
meeting!

Show and Tell!



Jessica showed her beautiful blue Scrappy Trip quilt top. It’s queen size and has 56 blocks. She’s
going to send it to a long-arm quilter.





Guest Kathy, a member of the Columbus Modern Quilt Guild, showed a cut bag that member
Kathy had given her as a Christmas present. She showed another bag, and a Madrona Road
challenge quilt with the theme Stars and Stripes. Then she showed a hands-free shopping bag
that she gave to member Kathy for “putting up” with her this week!


Christine shared another upcycle project: a beautiful, colorful T-shirt quilt made from her
favorite T-shirts. She embroidered to fill in the white space of some tees.


Ellen started a quilt at last month’s sew-in from a pattern she saw online at Happy Zombie. It’s
for a friend of hers who loves purple.


Vicki showed a small quilt that she made from a block swap a couple months ago.




Kayla showed a beautiful princess quilt she made for her daughter. Her sewing room is being
turned into a nursery for her next-born child, a son who is expected to arrive soon, so any
suggestions on places to sew are welcome. Please help Kayla with any ideas you have.


Lynn shared another do.good.stitches quilt with the Road to Tennessee block, which came
together beautifully with the blocks that her group sent her to assemble.


Emily, who is due on Monday, showed a beautiful appliqué quilt—her first appliqué project.


Gillian made the cutest Polaroid quilt for a friend whose baby is named June. The backing fabric
is Out to Sea because the family loves whales.


She also showed a square-in-a-square quilt for another baby who is due in June.


Closing
See you at our next guild meeting, May 8. Bring your newly made CMQG nametags, be ready to
vote on the details of joining the national Modern Quilt Guild, and remember that the next Sew-
In is on the following Saturday, May 11.






Wednesday, June 16, 2010

June Meeting (or "You've got a great zigzag")


TIP OF THE MONTH (from Amy): Try using yellow rubber dish gloves to help move your fabric as you machine quilt.


Next month's meeting will be on July 14th at 6:30.

There's a TON of info packe d in here, so keep reading!!!!
The Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild (CMQG) met for the third time on June 9th, and I have to say, we had a fantastic time! If you don't know anything about us, we are a new group of "modern" quilters looking for friends, inspiration, a creati
ve outlet and a group of people to "oooh and ahhh
" over our finished (or partially finished) projects. We're a small group, but getting bigger all the time, and always looking for new members to come share our love of all-things-fabric.

Thank you!
A very special thanks goes out to Sue for hosting our June meeting at her lovely home and plying us with wine and hummus. Sue has super-g
raciously offered her home for future meetings, and we'll probably take her up on that! Another big thanks to Amy for the photos!

Attendance & Welcome!
There were eleven members at our last meeting, including two new members—a big welcome to Laura and Emily!!! Wednesday evenings seem to be a pretty good meeting time, so for the near-future, we'll keep holding our CMQG meetings once a month on Wednesday evenings. 


Attendees: Heather, Gillian, Andie, Sue, Tara, Victoria, Kelly, Amy, Emily, Laura, and Amanda


Some business:

Gillian agreed to take on the treasurer duties for the guild. We will be holding an officers' meeting in the upcoming weeks to discuss more details of how the guild will run and function, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions regarding dues, events, web "stuff", etc. etc. etc., please let us know via this blog or our facebook page (link below). And even if you don't have a comment, be our friend! :-)



Website info:
On the website-front: Ning is going to become a pay-only site pretty soon, so we'll be closing our CMQG ning site pretty soon. This is the phase-out period! Start looking for all info regarding CMQG on this blogsite and our facebook page. If you don't have a facebook profile, never fear, don't despair! You can still see the posts without having a profile - you just won't be able to post anything yourself.

Charity involvement:
As a group, everyone seems very excited about doing some charity-quilting. Heather suggested two possible groups through which w e can donate quilt blocks: Rainbow Around the Block is accepting 12 1/2" monochromatic patchwork squares for those who lost their homes in the Tennessee floods. CMQG will be donating blue/green blocks to this great cause throughout the summer. For more info, go to: http://www.annamariahorner.com/rainbow.html

Another great group is Operation Care Packa ge, providing handmade items for our troupes overseas. Read more about this at: http://www.operationcarepackages.org/

Know of something else we can get involved with? Let us know!

LESSONS!
Once thing everyone wants is to learn new techniques, and we have a wealth of talented members who can be our teachers! Andie will be teaching the Strip-Twist Method at our July meeting, Amy will be giving a lesson on quilted placements in August, I'll be teaching a quick paper-piecing class in September, and Heather w
ill give a lesson on appliqué in October. Lots of exciting lessons coming up. Each will be pretty quick - no need to bring a sewing machine! Just gather around, soak the info in and get inspired! Because of these lessons, our meetings will start at 6:30 to give us a little extra time.

Fat Quarter Swap
There are a few of us (OK, it's ALL of us) who have a very small, very insignificant, very powerful fabric addiction. As Andie so hilariously put it, "It's my secret shame". Well, the secret's out—we love fabric and just can't get enough. SOOOO, our very awesome Quilt Guild will have a monthly FAT QUARTER SWAP! Woohoo!!! Very simply, take what you bring. Bring three fat quarters, take three fat quarte
rs. You get it. Swap away the fabric you don't like anymore or have no use for and take home pieces that someone else may hate but you absolutely love! and who cares - it's new fabric! :)

TaraTweets
Tara would like something fun to do in Jul
y because July always kind of sucks. Any thoughts? This is also about the point in the meeting where Tara tweeted about Quilt Dad, our celebrity hero, our crafty Brad Pitt.



Maybe he'll tweet about us. Quilt Dad - tweet about us, puh-lease!
!!!! H is blog's awesome, so if you haven't already, check it out: http://www.quiltdad.com /

Upcoming local classes
If you have any interest in dyeing your own fabric, there are two classes coming up this summer that will be amazing. In Fabric Dyeing 1, you will c reate several shades of one color and mix colors to create a rainbow of fabrics. In Fabric Dyeing 2 you will create multicolor fabrics using a variety of techniques. Dyeing 1 isn't a p
re-requisite for Dyeing 2. D yeing 1 is June 27 or July 17, Dyeing 2 July 10 or June 22. To sign up or for more information call or e-mail Barb at rbgro

Show and Tell
We had some amazing Show and Tell at this month's meeting! If you attend next month, make sure to bring something of your own - finished or not -to show us!

Heather finished a gorgeous wonky log cabin quilt with little owls that I think we all secretly wanted to steal when she wasn't looking. (Hopefully that wasn't just me . . .)

Tara made a super-cute wedding gift quilt for some friends (who hopefully won't stumble across this blog before the wedding) using Moda layer cakes.


Gillian brought in two awesome quilts that she needs some encouragement to finish up! The first was a Grandmother's Flower Garden and the second was an Amish inspired quilt featuring a Geisha-print fabric.

Amy (our fabulous photographer) showed us the panels she made for a baby quilt featuring the coveted Heather Ross Far Far Away Princess and the Pea fabric.

And I brought in an extremely bright print apron I made as a result of my current "apron-kick".


Block Swap
In other news, we exchanged our blocks from our very first BLOCK SWAP! This month, we swapped 9-patches made with only black, grey, white and citron prints/solids. They turned out awesome! Thanks for participating, everybody—they were all really cute and well made. Here's Victoria showing off her block for the swap:


Maybe next month someone will have a quilt put together with the results of the swap that we can show here.

Next month, we will be making Wonky Log Cabin blocks. Sign ups for this month are closed with 11 participants. Block instructions will be emailed to you directly are on the Ning site and in the notes section on the Facebook page. Still looking for the best way to get this info out! If you signed up and don't have the instructions in your inbox by Tuesday, let me know. We do sign-ups for this event on a month to month basis, so check back here in early July to get in on it for the August swap!


Check out some of our amazing members' Etsy shops and blogs:

Victoria's Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/knitvic


Also check out:
http://whipup.net/category/tutorials-patterns/ for some awesome tutorials and ideas!


Interested in joining the CMQG? Contact us through this blog our through our facebook page for more details on our next meeting! Hope to see you there!

Happy Quilting!

Kelly