First Meeting Of 2012

To start this post, I want to share a picture of the beautiful day that we had for our first meeting of the year.  Everyone was in good spirits and our meeting went on without a hitch.  The new president, Kathy Doane and vice-president, Carole Walker presided over the meeting and our new secretary, Kimmy Albins recorded our new and old business.  Jean Liddle the new treasurer let us know how much money we are starting our year out with.  I am really excited about this year.  

Wouldn't you love to make a quilt using this picture as your model?

The guild members still enjoy sharing our work and ideas.  We are all so excited about the coming year.  Some of the members got together to start another round robin.  Only this one is called a row robin.  We are going to start with a 42" strip and each of the 9 members of the group will add a 42" strip.  Each month we will take another "secret bag" with one of the member's quilt in it and add another strip.  When all the quilts are completed, we will have the reveal and everyone will see their finished quilt.  Remember, no peeking.

Kimmy won the door prize fabrics.  See how happy we are when we win
more fabric.

These are the fabrics that Kimmy won in the drawing.
I can't wait til I win again. 

Some of our members

One part of our meeting that we all love to participate in is Show-n-tell.  Each member brings a new project that they had just finished or is working on that they are stuck wondering what to do next. That is just the case with this beautiful quilt that Carole brought.  She was thinking of taking this whole quilt apart.  But she got a lot of suggestions from the other members and she decided to make it work.  That's what I love about this group of women that are in this guild, we are always ready to give encouraging advice and help with UFOs (unfinished objects).

Carole's quilt, she embroidered beautiful roses on each block.

Pat shared two beautiful aprons that she made for herself. She said that she is always making clothes and quilts for everyone else she decided it was time to make something for herself.

This is my favorite.  Makes me want to start cooking with an apron on.

A quilt block made by Kathy.

This is a mini quilt made by Kathy.  

The beautiful thing about these mini-quilts is that Kathy had
surgery on her shoulder in December.  And she had to create
these quilts with one hand. Go Kathy.

Another quilt top made by Kathy.  We have so much talent in our guild.
And she did this with her arm in a sling.

Jean shared some pillow cases she made for a local charity auction.
We are all such busy bees.

This hexagon quilt is all hand stitched by Mary.  She says this
is as big as it is going to get.

We fell in love with Emily's butterfly quilt.  It was hand quilted by
the group that meets on Wednesday. And she machine embroidered each
butterfly.  As you can see each one is different.

Emily proudly smiles as we oood and aaaaahhhed her quilt.

Love it!

This is an art quilt created by Helen.  Below are each of the sections.

Helen became our newest auctioneer at the December meeting
where she auctioned off white elephants that were brought in by the members.
She is the creator of the art quilt.

Below are two more quilts created by Helen.  I am always amazed at the quilts she creates.

This is a quilt that is the result of a round robin that Helen was apart of.

Well that is what happened at our January meeting.  We had lunch and as always the snacks were "off the hook".  I did not take a picture of the food because you will be really sad that you did not come. 

We are a very active group and we love what we do.  

In December a group of members took 100 cuddle quilts to LeBounher Children's Hospital in Memphis.  We also sent quilts to a women's prison for babies born in prison.  We also donate our scraps to make pillows for an animal shelter. 

We are so excited about this next year and all the projects that we will be doing.  So I hope you continue to come to our blog and post some comments.  

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

Quilt Guild Meeting, July 7, 2011

Our July meeting was very exciting, we had two guests and one of them joined our guild. Our new member's name is MaryAnn Bockman, I had to laugh when she told me that she left her husband at Lowes while she came to the meeting. Also she has 15 grandchildren that she has been sewing for.  I would say that she is an experienced sewer.  She said she was excited about honing her quilting skills as well. Welcome, MaryAnn. 
The other guest was Dalayla Jackson.  Dalayla is the 10 year old granddaughter of one of our members, Doreen Bryant.  Dalayla has picked up the sewing bug from her grandma, while visiting her grandma she has made 3 quilt tops.  One she learned to tie the layers together, and the other she will get a chance to learn to quilt on Jean Liddle's long arm.  I think her grandmother is going to take advantage of that oppertunity also.
Dalayla was not too shy to show off her handywork during the show-n-tell part of the meeting.

Dalayla showing off 2 of the quilts she made

The quilt guild was also excited to see the finished Oppertunity Quilt.  It is so beautiful and the guild will be selling chances to win the quilt at this year's Art Around The Square.  Tickets are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00.

Don't miss out on getting your ticket. You can purchase a ticket from any of the guild members from now until September.
We also want to thank our hostesses, Shelly Clark and Denise Evans, for the delicous treats that they provided. Everything was so delicious and nutrious.

Now here are some of the photos of the show-n-tell session that we had.  Everyone was really busy last month, just about everyone had something to show.

 

As you can see, our quilts are not only for show-n-tell, they keep us warm also.

Well that is all for now, we look forward to seeing you all at the next meeting.