2015 Christmas Party Highlights

Another year has come to an end for the North Star Quilt Guild and we said good bye to 2015 with our annual Christmas Party.  We had a full house and it was wonderful to visit with all the members and guests!

Thank you to everyone that donated an item to our Silent Auction, this is still one of our best fundraisers.  

We had a lot of yummy cookies, hot cider, coffee and tea to keep the atmosphere festive!

 The raffle were a big hit too.  The winner of our Christmas quilt was Marg Faktor, the Fabric Bundles went to Myrna Agerbak and Val Whitbread, and the Tuffet was won by Iris Bailey!  Congratulations everyone!

On November 28 Rae Baumgartner was able to attend the Habitat for Humanity Open House and present the family with the quilts the guild made for them.

The guild completed a few more Stitch and Flip quilts to start building our comfort quilt supply up again.

Thank you to everyone that made place mats for Meals on Wheels.

We have the church booked for our UFO and Retreat days from January to June.  Here is the schedule and it is also on the blogs sidebar for easy reference.

Jan 9 - UFO day
Jan 19 - meeting day
Feb 13 -UFO day
Feb 16 -meeting day
March 11 & 12 - 2 day retreat
March 15 -meeting day
April 9 -UFO day
April 19-meeting day
May 14 -UFO day
May 17 - meeting day
June 11-UFO day
June 21 - meeting day

Show and Tell

Another wonderful Show and Tell ladies!!

Now that winter is here and a lot of our members are heading south I hope everyone has safe travels and keeps in touch to let us know how they miss us and the snow! ;)

Happy Quilting

Kathy

November 2015 Meeting Highlights

Have to start by saying I'm glad we had our meeting on Tuesday because if it was Wednesday this month we would have been stuck in a snow storm.  So that was good timing for us!

During the morning we were busy making Tuffets which we purchased supplies for from Fabriculous.  They turned out so cute and what's even better is that they are both going to be used for raffles!  One will be for our Xmas party next month and the second will be for our Quilt Show in April.

Audrey, Marg and Blanche were busy in the afternoon organizing all the comfort quilts for there new homes. We gave away 31 quilts!

We also pieced together the blue bounce sheet blocks into a quilt top and as well as finished making all the Biscuit bundles so we can now put those two quilt tops together next month.

We had a great turnout for our evening meeting and it was nice to see some of the EPP blocks being turned in, they look great!

We received an invitation for the Christmas Dinner for Hospital Volunteers that will be held on Dec 1 at 11am at 50 Church St ( Home Care Entrance).  If any members are interested in attending and representing the guild that would be wonderful.

Highway 10 Designs released a new pattern called City Slicker!  It is a Jelly Roll friendly pattern that has two size options.  Paper patterns are now available from me or you can get a downloadable PDF at our Etsy Shop here.

The program for the evening was paper piecing and I demonstrated this method using our favourite Ice Cream Cone block.  30 sets of instructions were made that would make two blocks, one for a draw and the other for the guild.  Members were asked to use white background fabrics and a colourful or realistic fabric for the ice cream, the cone fabric was provided.

( Feeling like a total camera hog here so lets get to show and tell!)

Show and Tell

Great Show and Tell everyone!

Don't forget December 15 is our Guild Christmas Party so here is your reminder list:

- Party starts at 6:30 with Happy Cookie Time.

- Bring a friend or two!  The more the merrier.

- Your 1930's Reproduction fabric fat quarter for the exchange game. Remember to have it wrapped in brown paper.

- Placemats for Meals on Wheels if you made one.

- Silent Auction donation, please have them there by 5pm.

- We will be raffling our Christmas quilt, tickets $2 each

- We will also have a few fabric bundle and the tuffet to raffles, tickets $2 each.

-  There was no cookie list so bring a dozen cookies if you like. Don't feel obligated as if everyone brought cookies that would be around 720 cookies for use to eat. And don't think we wouldn't give it the old college try, we're not quitters. 

- Your Show and Tell and we will be having our 6 month Show and Tell draw that night!

- A holiday mug for your cider or coffee.

Looking forward to the party!   Kathy

October 2015 Meeting Highlights

It was a cold, wet and even snowy October meeting but that didn't keep our die hard member away! During the day we worked on finished the second yellow hand appliqued circle quilt as well as starting another Black, White and Blue Disappearing Nine patch but this one we added pop of orange to it! We will share pictures of that one next month when it is complete.

Rae has been doing some fall cleaning of her sewing room and brought 3 large bins of fabric for us to go through.  The guild took all the flannel and we cut up 4 kits to make Strip and Flip quilts which I took to make on my longarm.

We also had a crew working hard on printing, cutting and stapling our raffle tickets for next springs quilt show.  We hope that each member will sell at least two books before the Quilt Show.

We had a draw for the tulip blocks and they were won by Eileen Morran.

The program for the evening was EPP ( English Paper Piecing) demonstrated by Audrey Neufeld.  Member were asked to make a Hex flower in bright solid or tone on tone fabrics and were given the papers along with the instructions.

Next months Program is Regular Old Paper Piecing ( you know the kind you either love or hate!) and it will be demonstrated by me.   We will hand out our favorite Ice Cream Cone pattern, which makes great kids/baby quilts, and also give out the cone fabric with it.

Craft Sales

We will be unveiling our Lug Nuts Raffle quilt at the Flin Flon Arts Councils Craft Sale on Saturday November 7.   A sign up sheet for volunteers to sit at this table was passed around at the evening meeting as well as a sign up sheet for our table at the Northern Country Crafters Sale in Creighton on Nov 7 as well.  We will be having our One Day Raffle of our Christmas quilt there.  Here is a photo of that quilt.

 If you were not at the meeting and would like to sit and sell ticket please contact Sheri for the Flin Flon sale and Kathy for the Creighton sale.  I believe there are a few open spots for both locations.

Fall Retreat

Our Fall Retreat will be on Friday October 30 and Saturday October 31.  We will be having our Pot Luck supper again and if you can't join us for the retreat but want to come for the supper just bring a dish to share and you are welcome to share in the fun!

We will have a special guest this time, Shari Dyck from the quilt shop Road 17 N in Winkler, Manitoba will be joining us. She will be setting up shop in the foyer and joining us at the retreat.  Wonder what projects she will be working on?  So again if you can't come to the retreat make sure you stop by and check out Shari's shop.   It is important that we support our Manitoba quilt shops as we want them to keep there doors open.  Nothing beats walking into a quilt shop, its so much nicer than shopping for fabric online.

Christmas Party Reminders

Our Christmas party will be on December 15 and we will have our usually activities.  This year we are asking you to bring a 1930's Reproduction fat quarter for our game.   We will have our Silent Auction which is a great fundraiser for our group so please bring your donations for the auction to me at the November or December meeting.  We are also still collecting place mats for Meals on Wheels in December.

Show and Tell 

( Note - Some members were wondering why some Show and Tell pictures are missing from the blog.  Well there is a simple answer to that question...sometimes photos don't always turn out and are too blurry for the blog.  If this happens to one of your Show and Tell items you are more than welcome to send me a photo of your quilt and I would be happy to add it to the next months post.)

Happy Quilting
Kathy

Great Tip on Burying Your Quilting Threads

Thought this was a great tip on how to bury your threads when machine quilting.  I usually backtrack to lock my stitches but sometimes if you want a more polished look and this is a great way to do it.

Kathy