Potato Day

One of our members has graciously offered her home for our Potato Day gathering.  Thank you, to Lou St. Onge, for your generous offer to host this fun day.  We will have more information about Potato Day as it approaches, but for now just mark March 27^th on your calendars to reserve the date.

Crayon Quilt Blocks

This is just a reminder to anyone that may not have turned in their blocks yet.  Please get them to Lisa Scalia as soon as possible.  Thanks to everyone that has made blocks for this program.

Fat Quarter Swap

This month the fat ¼ swap will be “Whimsicals”. Jean has described this as being fabric that is “fun, light and easy on the eyes”.   The fat quarter swap will be the first Thursday evening meeting of the month as well as the first Friday morning meeting.  If you have any questions please contact Jean Greenlea.

Board Meeting

The next board meeting will be March 10^th at 9:00 a.m. at Joey’s Diner on Amherst Street.

Hospitality

The following members have signed up for snacks at our March meetings.  Thursday, March 4^th is Sue Boots, Betty Mazzaro and Pat Zambri.  Friday, March 5^th is  Marge Shaughnessy, Colette McWha and Michele Orlosky.  Thursday, March 18^th is Shannon Chandley, Barbara Warren and Joan Pushee.  Thank you ladies for volunteering.

Maple Leaf Quilters 25^th Festival of Quilts

March 27 & 28, 2010, Saturday 9-5, Sunday 10-4.

Exhibit of antique scrap quilts, including ”vintage butterfly” quilts, Tea Room ~ Basket Ticket Auction, Vendors, Consignment Boutique.  The show is at the College of St. Joseph, Rutland, VT.  Admission – $6.00

Quilt Show

To enter your quilts in the upcoming show you will need to have your forms filled out and returned to  Sue Livsey on the quilt committee by March 15^th.  Her address is 19 Glencliff Way, Nashua, NH  03063.

Chelmsford Quilters’ Guild

presents its Spring Quilt Show Friday, May 14-15 from 12 noon to 8 pm, Saturday 9 am to 4 pm.   It will feature beautiful quilts made by Guild Members, Fantastic Food Court, Raffles, Boutique and Silent Auction.  Admission is $5.00.  Show will be held at the Church of St. John the Evangelist–115 Middlesex Street–North Chelmsford, MA.   For more information please visit: Chelmsford Quilters’ Guild

Board Nominations

The nominating committee is happy to report that we have successfully found members that are will to run for almost all of the positions on the board.  We currently are still in need of a person to run for President.  We actually will need a person that attends the Friday morning meetings to fill the position since all other board candidates attend the Thursday evening meetings since they work during the day.  Only one member of the board needs to be in attendance to run each of the guild meetings so hopefully the running of the meetings could be worked out between the members of the board and the duties could be split among the new board.  We can’t have a quilt guild without people willing to do their part to make it work.  We know that many of you are telling us that you have served on the board in the past so you feel that you’ve done your part.  Unfortunately, when you have such a small guild there isn’t a large pool of members to solicit from.  We currently have approximately 36 members that can be solicited after we’ve discounted members that live out of state (or the country) or that don’t attend meetings at all or that are on the current board.  So that means that we need to have one (or two) of you step up to the plate and run for president/co-president or the guild can’t continue.  I would really hate to see that happen to this wonderful group of women.

Charity Quilts

Barbara and Joan will have “kits” of 3-yard pieces of masculine fabric, that members can then add fabric of their own to, to make a twin size top. Should anyone want to make a complete quilt, great, but Quilts of Valor will also accept tops only, as previously mentioned. Barbara and Joan are planning to give a little demo the first week in March to both evening and morning groups, to show some simple ideas for making easy, but interesting patterns. This is a challenge, and you can do whatever you want. The deadline for bringing the quilt tops back are the first meetings in October.

Barbara would also like all of us to know that all completed comfort quilts reside with her, and if any of us want one for a friend or family member (or someone in the news), we should contact her to schedule a time to select a quilt for that person. The Comfort Quilt Committee does not send or deliver quilts to individuals, but we, as guild members can pick up a quilt and mail it to someone that we would like to see receive one.  We do not typically use guild money to deliver quilts.  We each take responsibility for sending or delivering quilts to people we know.  Only for the Quilts of Valor project will we, as a committee, send the quilts and quilt tops that we receive from members to the Quilts of Valor organization.

Cotton Weeds Quilt Shop

541 US Route 1, Freeport, Maine.  207-865-460

Dear Quilting Friends,

You and all of your quilting friends are invited to join other quilters and escape to Freeport, Maine, for QuiltPortUSA, a fantastic retreat weekend of quilting fun.  The weekend of April 16-18, 2010, will be filled with classes with nationally-known teachers, open sewing, demonstrations, door prizes donated by national vendors, vendor booths, spa services, outlet shopping, planned community events and lots of fun.  The first one hundred registrants will receive a free tote bag.

This event will take place at the Hilton Garden Inn in Freeport, Maine.  Discounted rooms have been set aside for participants.  Freeport, Maine is a New England community internationally known as a destination hotspot for shopping and restaurants.  There will also be planned community activities happening such as a Chocolate Factory tour and wine tasting.  Please view our website QuiltPortUSA for complete information on this fun-filled event and share this information with your guild and all of your quilting friends.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Joanne and Meredith

Cotton Weeds Quilt Shop

New England Quilt Museum

If anyone is interested in checking out what is happening at the NE Quilt Museum use the link above.  In March they are having “Kinder Komforts” Amish Crib Quilts, featuring the work of Dorothy Bosselman who does miniatures some as small as 6” in size.

Don’t forget to bring your Show and Tell to the meetings!!!

Happy Quilting!!

René G. Therrien – President SVQG

Judy, René and Jeannie

Eighteen members of the Guild went on a quilting retreat just a half hour from home.  We have gone on retreats for the past 8 years twice a year and just love being away together.   Needless to say there was lots of sewing accompanied by a lot of stories and laughter, and of course everyone pitched in with advice, collaboration and help.  In addition to our own individual quilt projects which included baby clothes, lap quilts, Queen-sized quilts, Mystery Quilts and purses, we finished 2 quilt tops for our Comfort Quilt Closet.  The squares had been made previously.  Everyone who wanted to work on the squares chose a crayon and then had to match a fabric to the crayon color.  We then made an Ohio Star block using that fabric and white for the background.  The blocks were then assembled into 2 completely different quilt tops.  We were thrilled to accomplish so much! – Jeannie Weller

Eighteen talented ladies attended the February SVQG retreat at the Barbara Harris Conference Center in Greenfield, NH. From arrival on Friday morning to departure on Sunday afternoon, it was a weekend filled with laughter, humming sewing machines, lots of yummy goodies, and the companionship of friends. The weather co-operated, too, with sunny, mild days perfect for a mini-vacation.

A few of the results from the Deb Tucker workshop

While there, the ladies worked on various projects (add pictures) from king-size to baby quilts. Most ladies worked by machine, but we also had a few quietly sewing or quilting by hand. Several completed their “Hunter’s Star” quilts begun in a recent SVQG workshop with Deb Tucker. These were in a rainbow of colors and fabrics, from modern batiks to 30’s reproductions. Everyone chipped in to complete two lovely tops for charity. The blocks were made by SVQG last month as part of our “Crayon Block Challenge”. We chose tropical colors for one quilt and jewel tones for the other. One lady made a cool “race-car” themed quilt for our charity cupboard on her own.

We enjoyed the delicious meals provided by the camp, as well as meeting new friends in the dining hall. Saturday night was “show & tell” with a quilt bee attending from the Manchester, NH area. We all enjoyed showing our work and seeing theirs, especially one lady’s mini quilt with over 580 pieces in a 9”x12” quilt!

We sewed nearly “around the clock” with early birds revving up their machines at 5:00 am and “night owls” working till 2:00 am!! Many stitches were sewed in those hours and a fun time was had by all! – Lisa Scalia

What a Crazy Group of Women!!!!  If you are a quilter you already know how much fun going on a quilting retreat can be.  Our guild just had another retreat here in NH that 18 of our members attended.  It was filled with lots of sewing, conferring, laughter, constructing quilts for charity, laughter,  evening happy hours, eating (way too much eating, staying up way to late and did I mention laughter??  The weather was absolutely beautiful since the sun just perked everyone up all weekend. All in all it was more fun than any human should be allowed to have.    Join us next time!!!!! – René Therrien

The cast of characters....

Here are some photos from the workshop.

Thanks Deb!

Deb shows us one of her many Hunter Star quilts

Deb is a great teacher - look how everyone is paying attention!

20 students enjoy Deb's workshop on Feb 5th

The business meeting for this month will be on Thursday February 4. The next evening guild meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 18.

* (please note there is no Friday morning meeting this month as we needed the Friday date to host the Deb Tucker workshop).

Nominating Committee

We would like to give you a short description of what the duties of each office are to help you decide what position would interest you.

President – Shall preside at all guild meetings (or have another board member cover if she is unable to attend).  Keep members informed of guild meetings and events on a regular basis. Scheduling and setting the agenda for the board and general membership meetings.

Vice President -  Preside at guild meetings in the absence of the President.  Coordinate (as agreed upon by the board) programs for the membership that may include: guest lectures, classes, retreats, block of the month, row robins, etc.  This means finding a person to head each of the programs you choose to have. The VP also picks up the mail from the post office and distributes it to each officer or committee head if need be.

Secretary – Responsible for taking minutes at the board meetings.  Collects any meeting/activity reports that may be taken by committees and keeps the information on file.  Maintains correspondence from the guild (i.e. thank you notes, letters, etc.)

Treasurer -  Responsible for general oversight of the funds, keeping records of receipts, expenditures, balancing checkbook, receiving dues from the membership chairman and presenting a financial report at the monthly board meetings.  Presents the annual projected budget (that has been set by the board) for review by members.

We all enjoy SVQG and it’s up to our membership to keep our guild going! Please consider stepping forward to take your turn at keeping our guild running.  Just contact any of our board members to let us know which position you would like to run for.  If you’re not sure who we are, just look in your membership roster.  We’re listed on the first page. Thanks for being such an awesome guild!

Vermont Quilt Festival

June 25 – 27, 2010.  We received an inquiry from “Notch Above Tours” in regard to the Vermont Quilt Festival.  They are apparently offering a package deal and wanted to know if there was any interest from our guild.  If you have any interest in this contact Jan at Notch Above Tours.  wellsnat49@yahoo.com – 1-800-639-2367

Crayon Quilt Blocks

This is just a reminder that if you are participating in the Crayon Quilt Charity blocks you will need to bring the blocks to our February meetings.  Since there is no Friday morning meeting in the month of February we would like you to try and mail the blocks back to Lisa Scalia or send them to one of the evening meetings with some other member.  If this isn’t possible then you can bring them to the March meeting.  We certainly won’t turn them away.

Fat Quarter Swap

This month the fat ¼ swap will be “Think Spring” – It’s open to interpretation as to what each of you feels this would entail.  If you have any questions please contact Jean Greenlea.

Board Meeting

The board didn’t hold a meeting in the month of January as several of the board members were either traveling or had other commitments that conflicted with the meeting.  For this reason there won’t be any board meeting minutes for the month of January.

Hospitality

The following members have signed up for snacks at our February meetings:  Thursday, February4 – Annick Bouvier-Selwyn, Jeannine Rigney and Sue Livsey.  Thursday February 18 – Michelle Marrone and Patty Magaw.  Thank you ladies for giving your time and spoiling us with the treats you bring.

Potato Day

One of our members has graciously offered her home for our Potato Day gathering.  Thank you to Lou St. Onge for your generous offer to host this fun day.  We will have more information about Potato Day as it approaches, but for now just mark March 27 on your calendars.

Charity Quilts

Originally Barbara Warren and Joan Pushee had talked about wanting to start the “Quilts of Valor” charity quilts in the month of February.  However, since we are already running a Crayon Block, Mystery Quilt and Deb Tucker workshop this month and we won’t be having a morning meeting in the month of February, they have opted to start the Quilts of Valor next month in March.  Stay tuned…

Batiks

Milly Cunningham has been asked to make a quilt, which has been designed by a class of 4-year-olds.  It will be presented to the Philadelphia Museum this summer.  She has the designs from the children and will now attempt to make the blocks that each of the children have drawn.

She is requesting donations from members of our guild to help her out.  She is in need of Batik fabrics.  She has asked that if anyone has Batiks, from which they can donate a 10 inch square to her, it would be greatly appreciated.  If you can help out please either bring the 10 inch square to the next Thursday night guild meeting on February 4th or mail it/them directly to:

Milly Cunningham, PO Box 175, Groton, MA  01450

Don’t forget to bring your Show and Tell to the next meetings!!!

Happy Quilting!!

René G. Therrien – President SVQG

We’ll be posting new information here from time to time, including details about upcoming events, photos from past events, links to websites, and more!

Stay tuned for more to come!