A Day With Sally Terry

Thursday, October 27, 2011 the Paris TN Quilt Guild had a wonderful time with No. 1 Quilting Author, Sally Terry, She is the author of many books such as, Pathways to Better Quilting and Hooked on Feathers.

The day was filled with so much information and "AHA" moments.  We learned that "if it looks pretty you don't have to rip it out".  Sally is a delightful teacher and we look forward to another class with her soon.

 I wanted to make sure I got her bio correct so I copied this from her blog.

 Sally Terry’s quilting path began at the age of three. Through her teen years she made all her own clothing and tailored her own suits and coats, with bound buttonholes, sewn on Grandma's Featherweight. Sally began professional longarm machine quilting in 1999. With her art and graphic background and heart of a teacher, she “cannot get her ideas out there fast enough.”

"I feel I was born with an entrepreneurial spirit. Creating several business from scratch has given me valuable knowledge of marketing and business strategies which apply directly to  professional machine quilters. A lifetime of experiences in marketing, advertising and sales gives a fresh insight to machine quilters in today's competitive environment."
Her joyful enthusiasm for sharing, results in full day workshops for longarm, midarm and shortarm machine quilters, in her studio, in Paducah. She also is a member of the Instructor Program for Janome-America Sewing Machines. Her teaching career includes MQX, MQS, HMQS, Innovations, Vermont Quilt Festival, quilt markets plus attends major shows and markets nationwide.

Most students feel she has a relaxed way of teaching machine quilting which encourages confidence and a joy of learning. Sally approaches the information in her classes from the student’s point-of-view with in-depth knowledge that is creative and inspirational.

Sally specializes in running different threads, and free-motion quilting with a true touch of creativity. Many of her concepts have become common practice for beginning machine quilters. She feels that you do not have to copy her exactly to be productive and truly successful without unstitching.

Here are some of the testimonials submitted by some of the members of our guild that attended the class.

Kathy... "I had fun Thursday!  Every time I meet with Sally, I come away with new knowledge, and more confidence in my quilting.    Her easy style of teaching helps  you when you're  learning something new, and the best part, perfection is not required.  I've learned to be happy with my style of quilting.  I'm looking forward to having another class with her.  A genuine fun person who makes it easy to learn"

.Sandy....  I really enjoyed the class.  I learned that I need to practice A LOT before I actually use her method on a quilt.   Sandy

Pat M.....

Enjoyed learning new techniques, including how to set the feeddogs, thread hints, and it is OK to be inconsistent!

Sally imparted  a lot of new and useful information, and took the “fear out of feathers”, making them in the realm of possibility with practice.  I am glad I took the class.  Gayle

Shelly....I really enjoyed our class with Sally Terry, she was a delight and the day long class went by so fast.  I really feel like I can improve my quilting using her method. Her basic 5 shapes open up so many possibilities for the quilter.  I would recommend her class to anyone who needs help with their quilting and would love to attend another of her classes.

Sally was an excellent teacher.   She made the class fun and
interesting.  I found it very enlightening.   Barb Scott

I found her class to be fun, and as I tried what she was teaching, It got easier to do, she knows her stuff and is very interesting for sure.  I would take another class in a heartbeat! 

Kim Albin

The day spent with Sally Terry and her numereous lessons on the Terry Twist, templates, McTwist (her version of the MacTavish Twist) how to draw patterns to fit any quilting area was worth much more than we paid!!!  This is my second class with her and I picked up even more information this time.  I will sign up for another one of her classes...there is always something to learn because she gives soooo much information that it is hard to retain it all.  Her books are wonderful and such an excellent reference when you are looking at that quilt trying to determine what quilting pattern(s) to use.  In a nut shell:  Sally Terry has opened up a hugh door for me in machine quilting.  It has given me so much freedom .... one does not have to be perfect...Yeah!!.......Helen

February Meeting

We had a very fun filled, inspiring February meeting. Judy Snider came and brought 25 beautiful quilts that she made. She also came representing Bonnie Hunter's trunk show which will be held in Jackson, TN on March 5, 2011 At the Holiday Inn. It is call Peace by Piece and is sponsored by the Jackson Quilt Guild. This will be a treat for me because I have been using several of Bonnie Hunter's quilt patterns from her website quiltville.com. On this post I am sharing the quilts that Judy brought, we oooohed and awwwwed and was inspired to go home and get busy. Here are some of Judy's quilts.

Paris, Tennessee Quilt Guild at LeBonheur Children's Hospital

On December 8, 2010 members of our guild went to LeBonheur Children's Hospital to deliver the 105 cuddle quilts that was made by fellow members.  We want to thank Pat, Jean, and Gayle for delivering the quilts and writing this informative report about their trip.

We were given a tour of the public areas of new hospital and unfortunately weren't able to go to patient areas as we had in the past.  The new facility is beautiful and they have really taken and put in place the needs of the families as well as the patients. 162 patients were moved  from the old hospital over the weekend.  The new hospital has been increased in size in all areas and now has the capability for 268 with each child having a private room with a window.  Each room now has space for a family member to sleep in the room and also has shower facilities.  The emergency room has been increased to handle twice as many as before and has been split.... Many Memphis area families use LeBonheur as their "regular doctor" for their children's minor issues like colds, flues, etc.  So now the emergency room is set up to handle those separately from the critical care arrivals.  Last year the emergency room handled  over 75,000 patients, an increase of 5,000 due to H1N1.  She gave us figures on Ambulance runs as well as helicopter too, but those figures escape me right now.  St. Jude's made a 7 million dollar MRI/surgical room donation to LeBonhuer.  LeBonheur does 95% of St. Jude's surgeries.

Security is a big concern and that has been addressed within the new hospital in several ways, but yet doesn't feel jail like at all. 

LeBonheur now has a facility for out of town family members - much like Ronald McDonald and Target House which are for St. Jude patients only.   FEDEX Corp has sponsored the building of FEDEX House which is right across Poplar and initially will have the space to house 24 families.  Eventually it will be increased to 48.  The Corp as well as the employees have donated to outfit the house,  Williams Sonoma donated all Kitchen equipment.  Fred Smith and his wife Diane (CEO of FEDEX) and Alan Graf and his wife  (Executive VP of FEDEX) were major contributors.  Each floor has a kitchen facility and each set of rooms has a small kitchenette.

Art plays an important role in the healing process and many artists have donated their time and art to both facilities.  We were very impressed with the entirety. 

Our quilts were graciously accepted and we were told would be given out soon - not necessarily given out at Christmas.  The gal that met us and took us around was not with the Child Life Services department, but rather more of the "Public Relations area."  When asked if there were any specific needs we could meet with the quilts she indicated she would get with Thomas' group and let us know.  She said that with the 162 current patients being of all ages, any and all quilts would are needed.  Asked specifically about the fleece pieces, she wasn't aware that those were or had been used, but would check on the need and let us know.

We were reminded that LeBonheur was started by a group much like our guild, a  ladies sewing group.  To honor that, the LeBonheur logo has been changed to incorporate a large red heart with the look of stitches around the edge.

Again this year, we felt that our efforts were very much appreciated and needed.  We would hope to see this project continue.

An area of one of the waiting rooms - the wall was a mosaic of "things" and along the top of the wall it would say "10 fish, 11 cars, 3 bugs, etc"  so it was like an I spy wall and the kids spent time trying to find the number of things written.

This is the view of Pat's trunk with 105 cuddle quilts loaded in it - there was not room for anything else!

This is the wind garden outside one of the windows - very neat, beautiful metal artwork.
They did a study to see which area would get the most wind and be most useful for this.

 

Eye Full Of Paris (Eiffel of Paris) Arts Around The Square

Well here we are in October already, and it has been a great and wonderful year for our guild.  So much has happen, many projects completed. 
In September, we showed our stuff at the "Eye-Full-of-Paris" Arts Around The Square that was held on the last Saturday in September.  That was also the day that we had our drawing for our donation quilt.  We all wanted to win this quilt but the lucky winner was. Rick Albin, who is the husband of one of our members Kimmy Albin.  What a surprise for them.  I think she will enjoy having the quilt as much as he.

See the big grin on their faces?

We has so many beautiful quilts at the fair that day, everyone worked very hard to make it a success.

Cuddle quilts some that will be donated to the Le Bonhuer Children's Hospital

Denise was so kind to let us display this beautiful quilt. 

Mildred Puckett and husband. Where's your hat?

We are a very good looking group. And this is not all of us.

We had fun at our meeting in October and lot's of show and tells, do you wonder where we find the time to do all this creating? Here are some of the items.  I did not get a chance to take a picture of all the items because my camera's batteries were low. But I was able to get most of them. If I did not get to take a picture
of your quilt, please bring it to the January meeting so that I can take a picture of it and post it on our January blog post.

Judith modeled a jacket and vest made by Stormee

I think she is a good model

Kathy shared four of 16 quilts she made this month.

Kathy has been busy

Kathy purchased this beautiful Japanese Obi

Kathy said that she bought it for the fabric.  I wonder what she is going to make

Denise shared this beautiful appliqued quilt she just finished.

Oh my all hand done.

Our hostesses for the day was Helen and Jean. Thank you for that wonderful Strawberry Lasagna.