Guild Day, Tuesday, January 20, 2026

 Welcome to a new year everyone! Last year was busy, but I am sure this year will be just as busy if not more so. There were seventeen members present throughout the day working on various projects, some pin basting, some assembling blocks into flimsies and another group planning our next raffle quilt!

                                                  Judy was busy hand stitching a binding. 

                        June is pin basting a princess quilt that will make some little girl very happy!

             Lorna and Sandra are pinning the blocks so they can be assembled for our next Quilt of Valour.

       Thanks to Sandra’s stitching aided by Lorna’s pinning, the flimsy for the QOV was completed.

On to the next assembly job, the Arkansas Crossroads blocks, or as we prefer to call them, the Manitoba Crossroads blocks, waiting to be joined into another flimsy. This block pattern is an excellent one to use up scraps, and we all have lots of those!

Tada! Thanks to Sandra’s high speed stitching, another flimsy is complete. Thank you for the photography, Rae!

Laurie, one of our new quilters, used the day to complete her flimsy from the Learn to Quilt classes. Beautiful work Laurie, and your fabric selection is stunning!

                                 Evelyn took the opportunity to work on some English paper piecing.

We were able to pin baste four quilts and readied another with batting and backing for longarming. The larger quilts are fairly difficult to quilt on a domestic machine especially for anything more involved than straight line quilting.

Comfort Quilts:

                          The Owl quilt is one that Helen donated to us for the comfort quilt bucket.

                     This is the other quilt donated by Helen. Thank you so much for your generosity!

                                       Evelyn pieced this one and Sandra S. did the quilting.

                                                              Lynn stitched this one.

                               I’m sorry, I don’t know who deserves the credit for this lovely quilt.

     

                          Rae and Sandra assembled and stitched this on one of their work bee days. 

We now have ten quilts in our comfort quilt buckets and it is only the first month of the year! Fantastic work everyone! Can you imagine what we will have by November?

Quilts for Wildfire:

Audrey reported that with the help from many generous and caring quilters we have been able to take 163 quilts to the Denare Beach village office for distribution. We currently have three large flimsies to complete as well as two more from Zoey.

                                         Number 1, the lovely blue stars by Zoey.

                                              Number 2, peach and brown, also by Zoey.

As well we received a very generous monetary donation from Sandra D’s cousin to help in our efforts, thank you very much!

These lovely quilted jackets were also donated for us to use as we saw fit in our relief efforts. The girls had fun modeling them for us!

Show and Tell:

I went through my stash and found a variety of outdoorsy fabrics that would work in the Mahjong pattern to make a new quilt for our bed. It depicts fly fishing, camping, hunting, and all the outdoor things we enjoyed in our younger days. 

Judy had picked these fabrics from Aunty Marg’s stash to make this lovely quilt. The fabrics are so soft and spring like.

Lynn put her quilting skills in warp speed to complete this 1600 piece quilt in record time so she could take it along to Japan when they visit their son. Amazing work, Lynn, beautifully done!

Susan has had this placemat project on the back burner for a time, but now it is finished and they are beautiful! They will be lovely on a spring time table or even a winter one for a pop of colour!

Zoey’s owls and leaves are complete and ready for a bed. The colours are perfect, especially in that piano key border. 

  This is Zoey’s version of the Butter Tarts quilt that we made for our fall raffle. It’s amazing how a change in colour and fabric pattern can change the look of a quilt.

Cindy purchased the kit for this winter table runner from Mami’s in Duck Lake when she was on evacuation from our wildfires.

When Sandra was in China in the nineties, she found these treasures in a market. The colourful hanging is reversible.

These are the twelve Chinese zodiacs from their calendar. One has to marvel at the intricacies of the handwork.

Rae stitched this lovely quilt for her daughter-in-law who loves light neutral colours. The quilting shows up spectacularly. She is sure to love it!

Beverly was given some fabric and was told to make something for the guild. She enlisted Patty’s help in designing a pattern and this is the result! Very well done ladies! The green-bordered squares in the offset arrangement add an interesting touch.

                           Beverley then pieced the backing and practiced her straight line quilting. 

At our next guild day, we will bring our personal machines, as if it were a UFO day, and work at completing as many quilts as possible that are in our flimsy bucket. We are falling behind on our completions as tops are being finished very quickly. It will be an opportunity for us to hone our quilting and binding skills!

We finished the evening with the membership draw which was won by Lorna.

Happy quilting, 

Gladys

Guild Day and Christmas Party, Tuesday, December 16, 2025

 Today was an exciting day for our members as it was our annual Christmas party day! People were coming and going and it was impossible to get a count of the members. One of our beginning quilters and her wee one came so mom could work on her quilt. With little ones you take the opportunity whenever it presents itself! 

We received several boxes and bags of  Quilts for Wildfire Relief. They came from Snow Lake, Cranberry Portage, The Pas, Saskatoon, and locally from Rae and Lorna.

Rather than show each quilt individually, we placed them in the Sanctuary so everyone could walk about and view them .

The thirty-three quilts that arrived today are displayed here. There are more to come from Winnipeg, Carmen and Brandon. Look for updates in the January blog.

Some of the families who have received their quilts have shared on the Quilts for Wildfire Facebook page.

                                   Today’s pin-basting crew were working on a quilt sandwich.

                                     There is always a binding that has to be hand stitched!

                                          And another binding is being machine stitched.

                                           Some little girl will love this Snow White quilt!

In the Comfort Quilt report we heard that seventy-two quilts had been distributed by our guild this year to various child and family agencies, to organizations for fund raisers and to house fire victims not part of the wildfire relief. It is very rewarding to know that we are able to make a positive difference in our communities.

Our Christmas party was held in the evening, which included a turkey supper with all the trimmings catered by Tammy. Seventeen members and guests took part in the supper followed by an abbreviated meeting, show and tell, silent auction, fabric draws and two tables of a spirited game of left, right , centre with fabric strips.

                                                            Some after supper socializing.

                       Buying tickets on fabric bundles. There is no such thing as too much fabric!

 

  Perusing the Silent Auction items takes time and thought! What do I want, how much should I bid?

Show and Tell:

Patty stitched this lovely baby quilt for her daughter’s expected little one. The centre of each of the small squares is a small woodland animal which Patty fussy cut to fit. This will be a very special gift!

I finally completed a project that was planned for some time. After winning a fabric draw at a Christmas party, then sourcing some more to match, finding a pattern, ordering black batting and actually getting        down to work, the project is complete! The pattern is called Velocity by GE Designs, the fabric is                Farmhouse flannels by Moda.                                                                                                                             

Lorna used the web -piecing technique when she stitched this quilt for wildfire relief using fabric from Marg H’s stash.                                                                                                                                          

Rae shared her wall hanging with us. This was a project initiated by Marg F. a number of years ago. The wreath was made using the technique that Lynn demonstrated at our last guild day. This is a good example of how many different layouts can be made with one block.                                                                             

  

Sandra shared this beautiful quilt which she stitched for her 2025 Christmas quilt. I love the sentiment expressed on it, “Home”. The perfect place to be for Christmas!                                                              

This is the Christmas quilt Heather stitched for her sister. Sister  loves all things Halloween so her Christmas quilt has a Halloween vibe!                                                                                                              

Lynn sewed these hot mats for the mother-in-law in Japan. They will be spending Christmas with her son in Japan and these will be a gift for his m-i-l.                                                                                                                              

This was a special surprise for Lynn. Nadine had finished the longarm quilting on her Preisident’s quilt and brought it to the party to surprise Lynn! It turned out beautifully!                                                            

Myrna made this quilted hug as an alternative to a full quilt. It allows one to wrap themselves in the hug without having to deal with the extra fabric from a full quilt. A lovely idea, Myrna.                                         

Myrna makes special Christmas stockings for her grandchildren which she presents to them when they graduate from high school. Because she has difficulty seeing the fine work required to do the stitching she used a program on her computer to work out the pattern and graph in all the stitches. This required hours and hours of work but the end result was counted cross stitch done exclusively on her sewing machine that was impossible to tell the difference from hand stitching. Remarkable work Myrna! She also stitched a          graduation card as well as all the embroidery on the bag. You do amazing work, Myrna!                               

Lynsie crafted this beautiful  Christmas  quilt using a pattern called “ Always Together”.   The colours are so bright and cheerful . She said her seven year old son has appropriated it as his !                                    

In 2023 when her daughter was pregnant, Kareem sewed every possible thing she could think of for the baby grandson, now grandson number two is on the way so she stitched this quilt for him.  What a                  lovely gift for him!                                                                                                                                                                                            

After finishing the first quilt, Kareen discovered she had enough fabric left over to make a second quilt so now big brother will also have a quilt and not feel left out.                                                                               

Helen has not been with us for a while but is hoping to return after the new year. She loves making rag quilts and this one has a somewhat different approach.                                                                                

This quilt is one that Helen made for her daughter’s friend and baby Tristan.

What a beautiful rag quilt for Christmas! It’s easy to see why Helen loves making rag quilts.

A jelly roll rug was a new venture for Helen. She said she had some problems trying to get it to lay flat.

           Helen used chenille  on the back of  this baby quilt.       

This is a beautiful quilt for a child. Fantastic work, Helen.

I think Helen likes sewing owl quilts!

Helen’s final quilt is this lovely one in shades  of coral. She asked us to find homes for two of her quilts. Thank you, Helen, that is very kind of you!

At the conclusion of show and tell, the draw was made for the last six months of show and tell participants and the winner was Heather! Congratulations Heather, I know we will see many more of your creations.    

The draws were also made for the fabric bundle raffles. Moira was the lucky winner of the smaller bundle and Audrey’s name was drawn for the larger bundle. Congratulations, ladies, we look forward to seeing      your projects!                                                                                                                                                       

After the silent auction was complete, we gathered at two tables for the Left, Right, Centre game using fabric strips. Table one winner was Beverley, table two winner was Audrey! More projects to look forward to!                                                                                                                                                                       

After tidying the hall, gathering our things, wishing each other Christmas blessings, we turned off the        lights and headed home to our families. Another year is behind us and we hope to see everyone in the new year. Wishing all of you health and happiness for 2026.                                                                                    

Happy quilting,                                                                                                                                                   

Gladys