Congratulations to One of Our New Members

One of our new members, Joy Butler, has had a quilt juried in to the AQS show and contest at Grand Rapids in August.  The quilt is titled Rising of the Sidhe Moon- the Sidhe Moon being the 2nd dark moon in a month and is also called the Fairy Moon.  In Celtic tradition, it's the time when fairies cross from their world to ours and dance the night away!

Joy, how wonderful to be part of an AQS Quilt Show.  Congratulations from all of your fellow Q2 members.  Good luck!!  Your quilt is beautiful.

Leslie's Fun Hand Buttonhole Class

(I forgot to give credit to Stephanie for the great pictures she took at the class!  Thank you, Steph!!)

Last Wednesday, Leslie Peterson taught a class in hand buttonhole applique at the Chapel Lane  Presbyterian Church where we always meet for our Sit and Sew sessions.  What an enjoyable day with a great teacher, a good group of students and fun projects to work on.  Here is Leslie giving Earlene some pointers.

Bonnie and Janet getting ready to start the task at hand.  Leslie had made kits for all of us that contained the pattern, wool, needles and some floss.  The big bin on the table in the above picture was full of wonderful wool and some other fabric which she so graciously shared if you wanted a different color for your pattern.  Many different kinds of wonderful thread were passed around for all to see how much there is to choose from in the shops. 

Busy working on their buttonhole stitching - starting at center front and continuing clockwise around the table - Marlene, Helen, Kathy, Carol, Diane Bonnie Janet and Leslie.   Stephanie was taking the picture, I think you can see Earlene in the background by the window and I know Marsha and Melissa were there.  Don't forget that I am old - so leave a comment and add anyone that I forgot to mention.  If I did forget anyone, I am so sorry!

Here is one of the pieces that was a choice to make.  I am not sure who is making this one - so again, leave a comment.  It is so pretty.

Leslie holds up my little black wool wallhanging that I did several years ago.  It is machine buttonhole stitched.  She has used that and a little white one to show at another class she taught a few weeks ago.

I brought along some tapestry yarn that I used lots of years ago for needlepoint.  I thought it might be nice for wool applique, too.   Would you believe they laughed at the way I keep my yarn?  Really gave me a hard time, but I will probably continue to do just as I always have.  Hard to teach an old dog new tricks!  In this picture, you can see that Marsha is sitting next to Helen and Melissa is engrossed in her work. 

Helen and Marlene intent on  the task at hand.   Such a nice way to spend a day being with fellow quilters working on some really cute projects.

I chose the other pattern and here is a picture I took of my piece to use in a post on my blog.  It was hard to decide which one to choose.  I have done some more stitching on the vase now and am looking forward to fiinishing it.  Will be fun finding the fabric for the sashing and border.  

Thanks, Leslie, for the great job of preparing all the kits and making the class such an enjoyable occasion!!

A Block of the Month

We had an e-mail from Jackie Fellows with a link to a website  featuring a block of the month quilt that will start in July.  Jackie is planning on taking part and  thought some of you might be interested also. 

http://justquiltin.wordpress.com/2012-bom-christmas-town-sampler/

 

 

Looks like this will be a fun quilt.  Click on the above link and read all about it.  You might want to join in the fun. 

Quilt Show Winners

 

And the winners of the 2012 Quilters Squared Quilt Show are:

Challenge Quilt:
     1st     Diane Lytle
     2nd    Gloria Thompson
     3rd    Mary Ann  Howard

Mystery Quilt:

     1st, 2nd, 3rd     Helen Mudd

Strip Exchange:

     1st     Bonnie Wood
     2nd     Jean Langrill
     2nd     Mary Ann Howard
     3rd     Nancy Stanley

Other (Items other than quilts):

     1st     Gloria Thompson
     2nd    Deb Badour
     3rd    Julie Oman

Wallhanging:

     1st     Kathy Allbee
     2nd    Julie Oman
     3rd    Kathi Gober

Large Quilt:

    1st      Kathy Allbee    
    2nd     Roschelle Hueberger
    3rd     Linda McGibbon

Congratulations to all of you!  

Meeting Coming Up and A Link

Two things today--first of all Jackie Fellows has taken a lot of nice photos of the quilts shown at our show this past weekend and has set up an account on Flickr where you can go and look them over and also download some of them if you wish.  The link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/22860935@N04/    Drop on over to Flickr and enjoy Jackie's pictures.  Thank you so much, Ms. Fellows!!  

Next item is that our meeting is next Tuesday,  May 8th, same place, same time--if you need to be reminded of where it is on one of the sidebars.  You should have also received your monthly newsletter, also sent out by Jackie, with the information on what will be going on at the meeting.   We will learn all about the success of the quilt show - the record attendance, the money that the bazaar made and the names of the quilters who had their quilts chosen as favorites by the attendees.  Don't miss it!

See you there.

Another Wonderful Show!!

The view that greeted you as you prepare to pay your $3.00 that enables you to take in the wonderful annual quilt show that Quilters Squared Quilt Guild put on this past weekend.  And what a successful show it was - over 600 attendees (someone comment if you have the exact number) and a wildly successful bazaar.   A big thank you to Darlene Smith and Elaine Crewes and all the gals who worked so hard on planning and making everything happen for the success of this awesome event.  I won't attempt to name others as I know I would leave someone out - but thank you so much for everything all of the workers did from getting the word out, the giveaways for the viewers, the preparation and keeping track of all of the labels (that is a job, I know, since I did that one year!), the taking in and the hanging of the quilts, the setting up of the easels (or whatever they are called) that hold the quilts, the taking in and getting ready for the bazaar (those gals were working like little beavers), the quilters who came to sit at the table and greet our guests (that is really more fun than work, though), and I have probably left out some of the jobs done by our members.  Again, we would love to have you comment and add to this list.  That is one thing we don't much of on this blog, and it would be kind of nice to find a comment once in a while.  Now, I am going to post some pictures - I won't put names with the quilts since I just don't know who some of them belong to.  I have also taken some of the pictures the Midland Historical Society has on Facebook and will post some of them.  Since they sponsor us, I feel sure they won't mind.  The picture above is from that group.

This are the quilts of our featured quilter, Fran Galke, in the foyer as you came in.

And here is Fran.

Part of our great bazaar.

 The quild challenge quilts - part of them

Here's Julie Oman - she's been our bazaar lady for a long time but this year wasn't able to be there for the set up.

I wanted to say a few words about this wonderful wallhanging.  If you look at the picture right beneath it you will see that this is an interpretation of that photo.  It is a young fellow surprising his girl with a diamond.  The story is on the little paper along with the photo and if you click on the picture you can read the little story.  This was done by Kathy Albee.   She had taken a class  and was able to do this absolutely beautiful piece.  It is gorgeous!!  I am in awe.

I wanted to add this closeup of the freehand quilting that Kathy Mallory is doing on her home sewing machine.  Look at those itsy bitsy beautiful  circles and the lovely feathers.  Her work is absolutely incredible.   

I'm sorry I didn't get all of the quilts in but I think there is a good representation of the lovely items we had in our 2012 show.  Now all of you get working on your entries for2013!  (Click on the pictures and they will enlarge)