September 2021 Monthly Meeting

Before the write-up for this month's meeting, I have an

We will meet at the Gmeiner in October and November!!!!!

The Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild held it's monthly meeting for September 2021 on Monday the 21st.

President Sylvia began our meeting with discussion of the open positions of leadership for the Guild. Watch for the upcoming newsletter and nominations for those positions. It was also suggested that we might like to change the time of our meetings. Should we meet in the daytime? Maybe we should meet in the evenings in Even months and in the daytime in odd months. Please let an officer know your opinion on this. If you have any suggestions for ways to attract new members, please let us know. 

Jan offered the treasurer's report. Our finances are in order and our paperwork to remain a non-profit and a guild have been properly submitted. One of the payments she made was disputed, but she was able to prove it was paid. If you spend any money on behalf of the Guild, please be sure to provide the treasurer with documentation!

During our Tips and Tricks session, two tips were offered:

• You can use a section of a straw to cover the end of your seam ripper if you lose the cover that comes with it.
• When you need to rip out a seam, it is sometimes better to pull the threads with your stiletto
  Then to use a seam ripper to cut them.

If you have one of the quilts we designed during our orphan block night, please bring it to the October meeting. If you need help to get it quilted in time, please ask for help. If you can help identify the group you are in, it would be helpful. For some reason (we were having too much fun!) no one made note of who was in each group.

 Show and Tell!!

 

Janice shared this beauty with us. She started it in 2016 and was rightly proud to have it completed now.

Grace showed us this adorable lamb quilt

Barb brought Bumble Bags! She simplified the construction method.

Barb's Pillow

Barb with her wall hanging

A lovely wall hanging by Barb

Nice table runners

Another table mat

Linda showed us this great log cabin quilt

Close up of the log cabin

Marsha shared this Christmas tree wall hanging made from a jelly roll.

She had so many strips left that she made many more projects with the same pattern.

She also made a "Dawn bag"

Nancy showed us the many stocking she made from Christmas fabric for a charity in Mansfield.

Stockings!

Sylvia made this quilt of patches her customer had collected in her travels to national parks.

The quilting is very personalized and matches the theme of the patches.

Sylvia also completed this Spice Market quilt

Now it was time for our program. We were excited to have Betty Neff (https://bettyneff.com/) from Canton share some of her quilts with us and talk about the process she uses with groups to create them. She advised us to sign our quilts on the front as they are works of art. She also urged us to use our creativity with our quilts to "be a voice, not an echo."

See you next month at the Gmeiner!!!!

 

Special Meeting Alert from our president

Hello everyone,

As you all know there has been a lot of conversation about the future of the guild lately. This has been weighing heavily on my heart the past several months. I have decided to schedule a SPECIAL TOWN HALL meeting to discuss the future of the Guild. The meeting will be held on SEPTEMBER 11, at 10:00 AM at the Tokishi building at 124 Nypum Dr, Wellsboro.

I hope to see most of the membership there. This will be an “open mic” forum so please be prepared to present your thoughts and feelings. If you are unable to attend, please email or call me with any information that you would like to share. Due to COVID the policy is that if you are vaccinated, masks are optional.

Always quilting in my mind,
Sylvia

August 2021, Yearly Picnic and Monthly Guild Meeting

 Wow! What a great time we had at the picnic. Mary did an excellent job as our hostess and had the picnic shelter looking very welcoming when we arrived. She treated us to wonderful bouquets from her garden.

 

 

Our members cook as well as they sew. We had a wonderful meal with many tasty treats. 

 Of course, we took time to enjoy a good visit with friends old and new. It was so nice to be out in the fresh air with wonderful scenery surrounding us.

Once we were all full, it was time to get down to business. Sylvia began the meeting.

 

Fellow members, we have a serious lack of people willing to take an active role in the guild and fill an executive position. Many of you have received an email from Sylvia asking for ideas about how the Guild should proceed. If you have any interest in filling one of the following positions, please contact Sylvia right away.

• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Outreach
• Historian
• National Speaker
• Workshops
• Publicity

Vonda is still taking reservation deposits for the Fall Retreat at Three Springs Inn. The deadline for sending her a check is September 1st.

 

The 2022 quilt show is in a bit of limbo. It will depend on the form the Guild takes as we move forward.  Again, those currently in executive positions would love to have the Guild continue as it has, but the Bylaws state positions may only be filled by the same person for 2 years in a row. If you are not willing to take a position, but have suggestions on how the Guild can remain active in any form, please contact Sylvia.

Our Tips, Tricks, and Techniques session had some wonderful tips.

1. Bleeding dyes at final wash - Imagine washing a finished Quilt of Valor in preparation for presenting it and having dye bleed into the white parts 3 days before you fly out to gift it. What a nightmare. This happened to Sylvia. She went online to find out what to try and saw directions to put the quilt in the hottest water she could draw with blue, Dawn dish soap and soak it overnight. She then drained off the water and rinsed the quilt in cold water a few times. It worked!! The quilt was saved and she was able to make the presentation. How cool is that?
   
2. Using cone thread on normal spool pins- If you want to use cone thread on a regular spool pin, just cut off a piece of dowel and drill a hole in the center of the disc you create. Then you can insert the disc in the bottom of the cone and place the cone on the pin of your machine. Happy sewing!
   
3. The hazards of Frixion pens- as many of you know, sometimes the ink from a Frixion pen sometimes reappears as a ghost image after you iron it to remove it. If you spray your fabric with Best Press or Starch Savvy before writing AND switch to a Frixion maker instead of the pen, the ink will disappear.
   
4. Folding quilts for storage- When folding a quilt for storage, they wrinkle less and have fewer creases if you fold along the bias.
   
5. Better application of starch substitutes- If you put your Best Press or Starch Savvy into a spray bottle with a mister feature, it covers your fabric better and you use less product to do the work.
   

Show and Tell!!!

Our members provided a lot of projects to view and were successful at the Tioga County Fair. It was great to see what they did and to see the projects of others who did not compete at the fair.

I hope we see you at our next meeting on Monday, September, 20th, 7:00 PM, Masonic Lodge located at 9 Meadow Street in Tioga, Pennsylvania 16930.