April Meeting Notes

As planned, the meeting went off well on Saturday at Redwood City Main Library under Gerre's leadership. She welcomed everyone and then we were off on introductions and the question of the day.

1. Welcome
2. Question of the Day: What is your favorite tool?

• quarter inch foot
• rotary cutter
• Accuquilt cutter
• Hera marker
• Creative Grids rulers
• sewing machine(s)
• scissors
• imagination
• design wall
• wicker basket for storing fabric
• grid paper
• knee lift
• 3-in-1 Color Tool
• gummy strip used for indicating quarter inch without a foot 
• Fons & Porter Binding tool
• digital camera
• left handed scissors
• hands
• seam ripper
• WonderClips
• basting spray
• tailor's clapper
• Visa Card
• wide ironing board
• custom made fabric storage
• chatelaine
• Supreme slider (and equivalents)
• cutting table
• YouTube
• Clover marker/pencil
• computer/online shopping
• automatic thread cutter

One respondent said she didn't like to play favorites. ;-)

This was a fun question. People naturally tried not to duplicate answers, though some people did like the same tools. Also, almost an entire sewing room's worth of tools were mentioned.

3. Dues are overdue. Please see Annemarie for membership information or give Nancy a check. If you just want to pay by the meeting, the cost is $5 after your first meeting.

4. Amanda Rawson from SJMQT came and spoke. See the notes from a previous post. Amanda told us a little about herself. Though she is not a quiltmaker, she respects quilts. She learned about them under the tutelage of Bobbi Finley*. She is now Deputy Director of the Museum, having started out as an intern.

The museum wasn't reaching out to guilds in an organized way and she has started a program to do that. She came to talk to us about collaborating with the museum.They have lots of Volunteer opportunities - anything from sitting behind a desk to helping to install exhibits and working in the collection.

Many of the volunteer opportunities are around various events:

• First Fridays - South Street closes to traffic, and galleries, etc open up to the public from 7-9pm. 300-500 people come through the museum on such nights and they need help with Make & Take tables, keeping people from touching the quilts.
• Artist in Residence program - they need people to help the artist
• 40th Anniversary of the Museum this year - they need people to help with tours in the collection (assisting Nancy Bavor). Mel Beach will be making mini-quilts for people and she could use a hand.
• Donate a Fibershots piece to the museum. 10x10 piece (max of 3" dimensionality)
• Follow them on Instagram

After May 7, there will be no guild membership so renew at that level before May 7.
It is possible to get marketing help from SJMQT. Pay an additional fee and they will market your website or blog.

5. Merit Hexies - person with the most in June wins a prize. 10 hexies gets you a bag in which to keep them. This month, there is a new excloooooosive hexie for the Scrap Challenge.

6. Ongoing Projects and Events

• Membership: Annemarie wants to put photos on Instagram of projects and meetings to get us more visibility. See Annemarie if you have concerns about your face or project being shown.
• Charity: Peggy had postage stamp kits and blocks available. She needs people to finish up the arrow blocks. May 6 is the next Charity Sew Day where we will be making wheelchair bags. Peggy encouraged people to come even if you want to work on your own project. They will also have a new project for Charity using more of the Jelly Roll donation from last fall. This will make a twin-ish to large throw size and directions will be available soon.
• Pet Beds: nothing new this month, but Angela needs people to delivery. Reminder that filling must be soft. If you want to make a different shaped pet bed, that is fine. Just make sure it is double sewn.
• Library - See Leanne for returns
• Small groups - stay and sew after the meeting. New group around donating to Fibershots will be meeting (led by Mary)

7. NICU Nurse quilt - Kate, the NICU nurse came to talk to us last November. She is the founder and leader of Blankets for Babies, the organization that distributes quilts at the NICU at Stanford. After the very inspiring talk, a few people got together to make a quilt for Kate. Christina T is in charge of that effort and asked for help making blocks, doing applique' etc. If you have time, get in touch with Christina. She will bring the quilt to the next Sew Day to work on it.

8. Technology Committee - Christina, Ruth, Jaye - There will be a survey coming out this week which will ask members about their perception of the current platforms. Please answer the survey so we can get as much information as possible and be well informed.

9. May Meeting: Destash Party - Erin M is the coordinator and needs a helper. Used items will be available to give away. Everything on offer should be clean and usable. Please leave anything that is stinky or gross at home.

10. Scrap Challenge - Claire has a bag of scraps you can take home and look through to enhance your own scrap bins.

11. Speakers and Workshops

• Tara Faughran will be speaking at the July meeting teaching a color interaction workshop in August. The August workshop date is TBA, but stay tuned.
• Working on getting Karen Foster to speak. It will probably in September. Stay tuned for more details.

12. Big Kick cutter from Sizzix is now available. Amy will coordinate a list of dies people are willing to share.

13. UFO Challenge is due in May. Bags were exchanged in March.

14. Scrap Challenge #1 was due at the meeting. A wide variety of projects were shown. Claire showed some fabrics she has stored in bags for future projects. She was able to put these together as she went through her scraps.Gathering scraps into pleasing groups is a good way to have a fabric pull started. Claire had a raffle for all those who made a project: Leanne, Catherine W, Sue S, Joelle and Annemarie were all winners.

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15. Mary gave us a headsup that construction will start at Grace in May. Parking will be impacted. The location is still available for our use and maps will be made available regarding parking.

16. Quilty Happenings

• April 18 - Sujata Shah will speak at the SFQG meeting. More details on their website. $5 for guests.
• May 6 is the next Charity Sew Day at Grace - we will be making wheelchair bags.  Also, there will be an opportunity to help Christina work on Kate's quilt.
• May 6, 2-3pm: SSF Main Library - Joy-Lily will give a talk on how to be a carefree quilter. Find more details on the SSF events calendar.
• May 7 - SJMQT 40th Anniversary Celebration, 11-4pm 
• May 9 - Last day to enter San Mateo County Fair. See how to enter guide. $3 per item to enter and you receive 2 free entrance tickets and a parking pass!
• May 16 - Sherri Lynn Wood will speak at the SFQG meeting. More details on their website. $5 for guests.
• May 29-30 - San Mateo County Fair entries due at fairgrounds. Check dates and times. Cindy W has offered to collect items at the next meeting and take them to the fair.

17. Color My Quilt - we gave Kelly, artist of the month, her blocks then Karen did a reboot of the program. She gave us a lecture and included some exercises to reshape our thinking about the program.

• study of color
• create a chunk of the month, not necessarily a block
• Find a spatial representation matching the palette and mood
• Project goes beyond just color and is also about shapes. Can include historic, cultural or iconic references, but should reflect your feelings and impressions as well

Gerre is the artist of the month.

Pieces should have sides no smaller than 5 inches and no larger than 20 inches. See the original guidelines.

Great meeting. See you on May 20 next month.








*Bobbi is a fixture in Bay Area Quiltmaking. She is also one of the founding members of CQFA. She wrote a book called Quilt Tile Revival, which is similar to ticker tape quiltmaking techniques.