Bloomington Quilters Guild
at a glance: October 2023

Follow the links to get more details about what’s going on and to explore the website.

OUR Next MEETING is ON Tuesday, October 3.

Time: 6:00 PM Social Hour
6:30 pm Meeting start

Speaker: Wanda Black - “LInen Renewal”
SHOW and TELL
Location: BETH SHALOM and on zoom

“Linen Renewal” - Speaker: Wanda BLACK

Wanda is a creative quilter, happy to share her ideas about using vintage embroidered linens to make a variety of projects.  Come to the October meeting to see her show and tell items and enjoy her sense of humor as she explains how she gets these beautiful pieces out of the closets and bins to give them new life.  Consider how you can use your own pieces to make beautiful, useful projects.  Perhaps you will gain some nifty gift ideas for the upcoming holiday season!

Workshop - “Linen RENEWAL”

We all love embroidered linens.  We have some from our mother or grandmothers, ones we made ourselves, or collected along the way.  Now you have a wonderful collection of them in a plastic tub stored in the attic or basement or back of the closet.  As time passes, we don’t decorate our home with them anymore or (gasp) our children don’t want them.  What to do with them?  Here’s an idea. . . . let’s remake them into something wonderful and useful.  Let’s give them new life—Linen Renewal.

Wanda has written and gathered several patterns that will use those linens to show off their fine embroidery work.  Some options include projects such as an Organizer Basket, Flower Petal Needlebook, Quilted Postcard, or a Pincushion.  Let’s pull out those linens, make one or more new and useful items for ourselves, or share with family or friends.  Don’t be afraid!  Every linen is unique and she will help you make the best use of what you have.  The woman who originally made the embroidery might be pleased to know that it was being loved and brought back to life.  So, come on and pull out those embroidered linens and make some fun projects! Workshop is Oct 4 at 10. Registration is still open!!! Workshop registration information

4th Street FESTIVAL - From Monica Jensen

BQG's first-time-ever participation in the Fourth Street Arts & Crafts Festival (September 2-3) was a resounding success. Our volunteers kept busy sharing info, handing out flyers, visiting with curious festival-goers. Many more in our community now know about us. This is good.

Gargantuan thanks go to volunteers Janice Arvesen, Sandy Bonsib, Betsy Glassey, Becky Green, Brenda Julovich, Kathy Kessler, Ginny Kopper, Karen Levay, Diana Love and Nancy Stocker. On short notice, they were the face of BQG with the festival crowd. “Smiles all around."

Community Quilts

Bloomington Quilters Guild has a long history of providing quilts to many local charitable organizations. Our guild has two groups that focus on specific organizations and the rest are handled under the umbrella of Community Quilts. Community quilts are collected at each meeting and distributed throughout the community to meet ongoing needs.

Recently delivered donations are as follows:
- 2 for Habitat for the two houses dedicated on September 23
- 14 for Child Services
- 10 for Hospice
- 10 for Susie’s Place

* All these organizations were extremely grateful for the donations.

Future needs include lap sized quilts for a few nursing homes, lap sized quilts for Healthy Families Program, four queen sized quilts for another Habitat dedication in October and November.

This has been a month of generous quilt donations! The Middle Way group donated 30 quilts and the New Hope group donated 12 quilts! That is a total of 78 quilts for September.

As always, fellow quilters, thank you for everything you contribute!

See a few of the Community Quilts donated in September 2023.

RAFFLE QUILT - SANDY BONSIB

The 2023-2024 Raffle Quilt was unveiled at the September meeting. “Alaska” is a stunning quilt created in all batik blue and cream fabrics by Sew Much More Quilting Bee members Vickie Fry, Marla Kay Holzknecht, Shannon Kane, Elaine Lucas, and Tina Stewart. Alaska measures 71 1/2” x 71 1/2” and is a pattern by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.

Sandy will have new and improved raffle tickets to distribute at the October meeting. It should be easy to sell tickets for this beautiful quilt.

Orphan Block Project

Last year, Ginny Kopper suggested that the guild collect “orphan blocks” and make them into quilts to be donated to the various community quilts groups, depending on size and type. Since then several members of the guild have had a lot of fun figuring out how to configure blocks (and pieces of blocks) into a coherent quilt that a recipient might like. Here is a gallery of completed "orphan block” quilts, showing that they are orphans no longer!

November Meeting and WORKSHOP

Our November speaker is Leanne McGiveron of Sumac Studios. Her presentation is titled Ireland Inspired: Interlacing Visual & Textile Arts. “Ireland Inspired” is a multi-year project that intertwines two parallel artistic mediums into a single exhibit. The first medium, textile arts, brings to life a series of Celtic knots from Ireland’s Book of Kells. The second medium, visual arts, showcases the love for travel photography. The true magic of this project unfolds as the rich colors of Ireland, captured through photography, are infused into the textile art through the technique of appliqué. This interlacing of artistic expressions creates a unique narrative, embodying the essence of Ireland’s cultural heritage and its captivating landscapes.

On SATURDAY, November 11th, Leanne will hold two workshops (half day each) titled An Introduction to Celtic Knotwork. This class is the perfect opportunity to get started with Celtic knots and bias cording. With your own fabric, we will explore using a stencil (provided), learning how to create bias cording with the help of bias bars, glue basting the knot to the background and mastering the ‘overs & under’ of Celtic knots. You will be able to finish your knot at home via hand or machine appliqué.

SEW DAY, Saturday, November 18, 9:00-4:00 at St. Mark's United Methodist on the Bypass

Mark your calendars for a sew day on Saturday November 18. Might be a good opportunity to finish up your holiday projects and have fun socializing too! Come for a couple of hours or the whole day. We just ask for $5 per sewer to be contributed to St. Mark's. You can work on your own project or help create a quilt from orphan blocks. Sew Days are a great chance to mingle with friends, make new friends, and learn new tricks and tips!

Membership

It is time for dues! Please either bring your check to the meeting or pay online! Anyone who has not paid dues by the November meeting, will be removed from the email distribution and the Facebook page. For more information.

REMINDERS:

• Don’t forget your name tag at the next in-person meeting!
• Bring used rotary blades to any in-person meeting for recycling.
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MORE INFO

~Contact us for a Membership Directory.
~See our list of Board Members.
~See a list of upcoming quilt shows and shop hops. Let us know of other future events by sending mail to webmanager@bloomingtonquiltersguild.org.