Well, it sounds more fun than “Let’s Get to Work!” It IS a lot of work putting on a quality quilt show, but we do have fun in spite of that. Many parts make the whole event and most of those go together like well oiled gears. Members have streamlined the processes and tweaked this and that to make it even smoother for the next year. This year will be tougher than most. We did not have our faire last year, so our newer members need training, and we lost quite a few members in 2020 & 2021. Some moved away from the mountains, and we lost some in death. The most challenging part will be keeping up with the shifting rules and current mandates that COVID causes.
This year our Quilt Faire ‘Queen’ is Dana Osterlund. This means that she is in charge of everything involving the Quilt Faire. Quilt Faire committees (35 of them), report to her on their status.
Entered quilts and exhibits are analyzed, arranged and rearranged. All applications are sorted (by size, color and theme) during a Planning meeting. The final show layout is decided at this meeting and the results are distributed to the frame builders and the check-in and return crews.
Now, all the behind the scenes work gets serious. We have only 18 days or so to prepare for our invasion of Ironstone Vineyards and what we call “Quilt Faire Week”
Because of COVID we did not meet and have a cut day last year. To make quilts we found fabrics in our ‘stashes’ to use. And what better time to quilt than the cold and snowy days, that you can’t leave your house if you wanted to.
I’m talking about This
We still had donations of fabrics last year, and the un-used ones bought prior to March of 2020. Mary Sue showed me how half our storage space was full of fabric designated for comfort quilts. The tables will be piled high on Monday!
So, we are meeting at the Hall at 9:00 am to get started cutting. Our normal Announcements & Sew and Tell will be happening at 10:00 am. Then it is back to work!
Those of you who attend via Zoom will need to contact Jodi Lea Greenfield (209) 795-7425, JodiLeaG@comcast.net to make arrangements. Because of the Cut Day, we are not planning to set up the Zoom for the meeting. It can be done from 10-11 if y’all want to participate. But Jodi is not planning on setting it up if no one is attending.
BTW – the attendance by Zoom is now working, and it will be set up on Monday meeting days, unless otherwise announced as above.
On Monday, February 3rd, at 9:00 am sharp, the sale of Millie Arieta’s sewing room will begin. Millie has to move and must part with her fabrics, notions, and machines.
Those who know Millie will tell you that her fabrics are of quality & she has a lot of them. To help finance her move, she is offering to sell them to us.
A sneak preview of the merchandise:
Now, THIS is worth getting up early for! Nice, and well cared for equipment
IHQ does not get involved with politics or any controversial causes. However, with the Super Bowl occurring this Sunday, I can’t help myself…
Cut day is when we choose fabrics for a comfort quilt pattern, and cut the pieces needed to make the quilt. These get put into a bag, along with the pattern instructions, and batting. Now this bag is called a “kit” and it can be checked out to members that want to work on it.
Some members like to piece the quilt top together, some prefer to do the quilting only, and others like doing the entire process from piecing to binding. This makes it fun for all.
Those of us who can’t cut straight with a ruler take photos…
This post is about our March 16th “Comfort Quilt Day” – Whoops
We brought our washed and chopped veggies. We lugged in our rotary cutters and mats.
Candid shot of one of our ‘sweatshops’
The veggies were thrown into the ‘stone’ soup pot, the cutters were humming along, cutting fabrics to make comfort quilt kits.
We do not sell the kits – members of the guild use them to work on quilts for the community, hospitals, foster children and emergency response crews. The kits, made ready to start piecing, – need no cutting, no fabric decisions, and the instructions are right there.
Another cool thing is you can help out with our signature project and only do the parts you want to do. For example, you hate quilting but love to piece quilt tops. Just check in the kit when you’re finished piecing and someone else will do the quilting part. Almost like magic!
I didn’t know what to expect, since this was the first Comfort Quilt marathon I could attend. There were tables and tables and more tables of fabric choices. New fabrics, old-fashioned prints, Batiks to flannel kids fabric. Little room was left open for “browsing” – there wasn’t much open floor space to be had. A Quilter’s fantasy that I’m still disappointed our photographer missed a photo-op of this impressive sight!
The meeting room also had tables set up, raised up more than usual for good cutting posture. At each table there were 2 – 3 quilters busy with their cutting mats and cutters. As you entered the room, the first table, piled high with patterns, from beginner to expert quilters. I picked out 2 – both of them easy patterns I thought I could handle.
At 11:30 the soup was ready and we all took a break to eat. I’ve got to find out what stones the cooks used to make it so delicious. I decided it wasn’t the veggies – I HATE vegetable soup.
The BEST part to me, also the toughest part, is picking out the fabrics to use for the pattern. It was fun to put fabrics with like colors together, find prints that went well with the picked ones. Find a more suitable color and swap it for a previously chosen one. It took me 2-hours to select the fabrics for one of the quilts, so I brought them home to cut. It took me about a week to get up enough guts to start cutting. Like most important tasks, getting started is the hardest part.
THEN – I couldn’t help it, but it would be so much easier to do the piecing by sewing strips together and cutting the group into blocks – a great tip I learned from a guild members “basics” class. Instead of someone having to sew every small piece together. I suspect that I could not let the kit go without my sewing part of it.
Since discovering quilting I have become very weird about fabric. It is not as bad as my yarn addiction. Yet…
Independence Hall Quilters 