A couple of weeks ago, Matt and I took a class at Central Sewing. The store had brought in Hattie Brown, an HQ Educator, so she could teach Edmontonians about this fabulous quilting set up. The morning class was an introduction to the machine, and she taught us about weight of thread, what size of needles to use, how to load quilts, what direction to quilt and so much more. We learned about features we did not even now we had! Hattie is a great speaker and she kept the class thoroughly engaged for the morning.

Hattie brought some samples of her work on the HQ. One quilt that I found to be exceptional was an heirloom, trapunto quilt done wholecloth style. She told us that Karen McTavish had been her teacher for the project. That was pretty exciting to me, since I am a big fan of Karen’s. I would love to take a class with her! She also showed us samples of all the groovy board templates which are available for the HQ. One awesome tip she shared with us was to pause in the corners of templates to form right angles, rather than rounded corners.

tags: hattie brown

Just the other day we finished up the quilting on our first customer quilt. A woman from Guild had asked us to quilt the charity quilt she was working on, and of course I said ‘Yes!”. The quilt was a group project, Marjanne had arranged for members to donate their quit blocks, and she added sashing, borders, and additional blocks. The quilt turned out beautifully - as you can see!


Marjanne gave us permission to do whatever we liked. It turned out that we had a groovy board template that fit perfectly for the block size. Fortunately Matt and I had just taken a workshop and learned some great tips for quilting with the HQ16. For the borders we decided to stitch in the ditch. Here you can see a couple of blocks up close.





Here is a look at the HQ16 with the quilt displayed over the frame....





What a great set up and a beautiful machine. We are so hapy with it! Marjanne was thrilled with the quilt. She picked it up Thursday morning, and donated it to the charity that night during our guild meeting. Most exciting, she has already said she will bring us her next quilt! SHe has big plns for the next one, feathered borders, micro stippling around her trapunto, and echo quilting to finish it off. I had to giggle a bit when she showed me the quilt... still under construction! When it is ready, we will be too.

tags: services

Well this pretty big news and I should have written about it sooner. But I didn’t so here it goes! In May our Quilt Guild held the Annual General Meeting. This is a big one, when we vote on our new executive positions which need filling.

Our current President, who is also the Founder, stood before us and made her call for the various positions. She began at the top and made her way down the list. To my surprise, very few positions had volunteers. There was a nomination for VP but none for Prez. No body wanted Program Committee, but loads stood up for the Quilt Show Comittee. Our Retreat Comittee was also overflowing, my Mom volunteered for Auditor, and our friend Joan is the Arts and Cultural Representative.

I snuck across the room to whisper in my friend Gerri’s ear. She had been the nominee for VP. I told her if she went for President I would gladly be her Vice President. She agreed after a wee bit of arm twisting. We stood, made our announcment, accepted our sentences, and carried on with the meeting.
Quilting Guild - How do I fit in?
Afterwards, I couldn’t quite believe what I had done. I nervously thought about what responsibilities the title would carry. Would I be able to deliver? Would I do a god job? I confidently decide that YES, I could do it. I took some time to look over our Guidelines and Bylaws. I also looked over the entire website to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

A couple of weekes afterwards, our current President called an executive Meeting at her home. The current executive and the new executive were all invited to attend. The meeting went well and we discussed such things as a questionnaire for the following year, which charities would we continue working with, and what to do with our budget. We realized that with no Program Committee we would have some extra work on our hands. We wrapped up for the night with plans to meet at our General Meeting in a week’s time.

I wish that things had stayed that simple. However the Saturday before our meeting, I spent 3 hours on the phone dealing with various opinion issues in regards to our questionnaire. Not everyone agrees on everything, but when you are working with such diverse personalities, it is important to be flexible. Two days later, the issues were finally ironed out. I have a feeling that this is just the beginning.

So my question for you Quilting Readers, is what does your Guild mean to you? Are you involved as a volunteer? Have you encountered difficult times while dealing with other Executive Members? Please leave your comments and advice for this Newbie Executive Member!

tags: vice president