​The Guild's first meeting started of with a fascinating presentation by Nina Stahlschmidts, who has been avidly collecting “feed sacks” for many years. When she first started her collection, she said she would pay about $2.00 for a sack in good condition, and now may pay upwards of $40.00.
Many of the bags she brought were from the mid 19th century yet still retained their colour in the logos that were printed on them. Each feed sack had a logo of a company, such as Robin Hood Flour, that made a specific product for early settlers use. The bags were filled with flour, milled corn or other grains and would weigh about 98 lbs with the tops sewn by a sewing machine that would come down from above to sew it shut with string.
Nina also showed us some of her doilies made into quilts which were so beautiful. The work that went into them, superb!
Each of the quilts shown was unique and lovely and it was a
pleasure to see how someone could make something out of what others may throw away.
Oh, she also mentioned she could show us how to make a quilt using our “grannies' hankies and doilies” if interested. That could be another fun workshop!

With 76 members and two guests present, our morning began with a wonderful presentation by Patti Carey, VP of Public Relations for Northcott.  Patti has been with Northcott for 31 years teaching, travelling internationally and designing patterns. She recently also designed her own line of fabrics, “Vino,” and showed us a couple of quilts and a tote bag trio made from it. 
Patti teaches workshops on borders and binding and is in the process of developing a tool that facilitates cutting mitred corners on borders prior to assembling the quilt.  Because of its softness, she often uses rayon for the backs of quilts and displayed a couple of scarves made from seven layers of rayon and chenilled.  Patti recommends washing the rayon prior to using.
Another highlight was seeing Patti’s queen-sized “Deck the Halls” quilt made from Northcott’s 2019 Holiday Collection. This quilt will be featured in the December Issue of McCall’s Quilting magazine.
Patti finished her presentation with many clever arrangements of Stonehenge fabrics, and “Strip-R” fabric, as well as Tropical Fusion, Noah’s Ark, Chloe, April Showers, and Arctic Snow.
If you are looking for Northcott fabrics, go to the Northcott Website (Northcott.com) and click on Product Finder.  Once fabrics have been shipped to quilt shops, you can access information as to who will be receiving it. 
One can also enter a “Block Party” contest. Follow the rules, quilt and bind your quilt, then send a picture to Northcott to qualify for a chance to win an 11 day trip to England and Stonehenge.
To follow Patti’s blog, go to her website.
Following the presentation, attendees could purchase patterns all designed by Patti.
​Here are many photos of Patti's quilts. 

​Afterwards members and guests enjoyed eating and visiting with one another over our pot luck brunch, then had a short business meeting that included introducing our executive and coordinators for the upcoming year. 

​Show and Share brought this guild quilting year to a close.

Once again we had a full house as we gathered to enjoy a Trunk Show by Sandy Lindal of Scrappy Gal Quilt Company. Several members had participated in a workshop by Sandy and we all loved hearing the story of her quilting journey and admired all of the amazing quilts made mainly from scraps.  It was especially touching to hear how Sandy included her mother in the quilting of some of the quilts, even though her health was declining.
After refreshments, there was a brief business meeting which included thanking all who made our 2019 Quilt Show which had an attendance over 500, successful.
There was a brief Show & Share today as most of our latest creations had been displayed at the Quilt Show.

Show and Share:

Go here to see photos of another great quilt show by our guild.  Thank you to all who participated!

Another busy morning at the guild ensued as members helped with library inventory, others aided in pinning a quilt and Jannet demonstrated the process of making quilt sleeves for hanging the quilts at our upcoming show. She also gave a tutorial on making half square triangles.
Quilt Show preparations also included intake of items for the Guild Boutique, and sign-up sheets for the many volunteer positions needed.
And, of course, our refreshment team made sure we had our coffee, tea and goodies as we also spent time visiting with one another and working on personal projects.

The morning started with a short business meeting and some members had items for Show & Share. We then settled in for our annual auction, once again led by Betty Huygen and her helpers.  They did a great job and lots of quilting treasures were bought and sold.

Lots of our quilters were in attendance on this sunny, spring day.  Several interesting articles were being submitted for the Quilt Show Boutique, members were chatting and working on projects, Quilt Show sign-up sheets were gradually being filled in, the library was open and in full use and as usual coffee, tea and delicious snacks (mostly chocolate!) were available.
Andrea Manias gave a very informative demonstration on the use of the Colour Vie Pigment system, as demonstrated below.  The beautiful large finished piece is the work of Mary Veenman.

​Attendance has returned to normal with 87 members present and 9 guests.  

The presenter, Dorothy Fu, started out with fairly traditional quilts.  Immigrating from Taiwan, via Brazil, to Canada, she didn't begin quilting until the early 80's.  She liked her first quilt, intended for a friend's wedding gift, so much that she kept it and bought something else for the friend.  Even her early, traditional quilts are notable for intense quilting, all done on a domestic sewing machine.   But she quickly moved on to pictorial quilts and her whole cloth painted quilts (Greta Garbo, Mona Lisa with Da Vinci depicted on the back, Mother Teresa) drew gasps from the audience.  At the  conclusion of the wonderful trunk show, Dorothy spoke about creativity.  With the left brain mostly responsible for analytic thought and the right brain for creative endeavours, it is important to use the left body more to activate right brain activity.  She encouraged us to brush our teeth and hair, to eat, to bounce a ball,  all with our  hand. Da Vinci himself wrote with  his left hand from right to left.  Dorothy Fu presented a truly elegant talk and finished with a display of the butterfly quilts created by the class she led the day before (last photo in the gallery below).   

Dorothy's website here.

The following photos of are Dorothy Fu's creations: 

On another wintry February morning, we had a few (very few) making fidget quilts. Thanks to Libby, there were lots of supplies.  Jannet showed a few ladies how to sew fabric flowers so they could be glued together for the quilt show. Five members helped with this project and others looked on from time to time.
Marlene Stewart encouraged us to save our scraps at home when we trim off the quilt batting from our quilts, as this works wonderfully as stuffing for making bed mats for the homeless. These keep them off the ground and can be used to wrap themselves in. She also demonstrated how they are made in a small sample. Gwen and Susan were collecting and tagging the items brought for the Quilt Show Boutique.
It was a lovely time as usual and now that spring is just around the corner, we hope we’ll have more members enjoying this informal morning.