Members present: 24
Denise began the meeting at 10:01 with a welcome and observation that we had no guests or new members.
- Business
- Island Quilter is offering a pop up this weekend, the 24th and 25th from 10-4 at Camp Burton. Look for “retreat center” sign. Everyone is invited.
- VIGA Quilt-just a couple of items left-the quilt is on its 4th iteration and progression to finish with it being loaded on the long arm May 1st. PLEASE have your finished items to Chris by then if possible. Georgia offered a green fabric to make the sashing with and Kathryn is back and still offering to bind the edges (YAYYY).
- Fire Department. Every quilt is due June 1st. We will set up a transfer of quilts to the Fire Department with press and fanfare sometime in June. Please let Chris know if you have a quilt (we are trying to get a final tally)and expect to deliver it soon or need to make accommodations. I counted 4 beautiful quilts just today!
Labels for the quilts are ready and will be stitched on in June-perhaps at the June Sew day. - Barbara G on small groups.
- Sew Day had low attendance (it was last Tuesday) and will be the second Tuesday in May. We are to continue to have someone instruct (this time on y seams) and of course bring whatever you have to work on.
- Featherweight will be the 4th Tuesday at Barb’s.
- Machine quilters will be Monday the 27th at Margaret Bickel’s house.
- Applique will be the 1st Tuesday in May(Cinco De Mayo-the 5th) at Judy Dome’s house.
- Misc. It was stated again that Anita is retiring from Baby quilts and if you hear of anyone who can help with that be sure to have them check in with her. Margaret can take your baby quilts to her if you have any.
- Member announcements
- Marian: the program for next month is Quality Sewing and Vacuum. One of the proprietors will come and talk and bring items to sell as well. If you need something in particular please let Marian know.
- Denise suggested and everyone agreed that the next snack person should be the person who brings “the bag” and then passes it on to the following snack person.
- Other possible projects
- “pall” quilt given to a church to use on a casket
- Picasso quilt as group project – Chris will try to get the formal plans. Photo or famous painting that is divided up into sections (blocks) and each person completes a section which is then sewn back together to create a quilt.
- Link to a photo of the quilt: https://viqg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/IMG_2243.jpeg
- If you have any other ideas for long term projects for the group please let Denise or Chris know.
- Program
Andrea announced the program and explained what the main purpose was. Everyone was invited to look through their UFO’s and bring one in to tell us..why it is a UFO, what happened?what went wrong, what you did to finish…
Several people brought in their UFO’s and over the course of the hour we saw and heard about some amazing projects as well as the thread that led them through to today. Some people told stories of their UFO’s.I will include a few photos below with a brief explanation and a running narrative of the sharing. This was by far and away a packed agenda and I apologize if i have missed anyone or anything-there was a tremendous amount of info and storytelling.
We took a break and then proceeded to show and tell and magically, there were more quilts! By the end of the meeting nearly every person in the room had shared out about a UFO or new quilt.
A short board meeting followed the main meeting.
Thanks to Sharon for outstanding snacks…and yes I will list the snack list again next month prior to the meeting.
Cheers,
Respectfully,
Chris Cocklinray
If you can open the website and take a look at the pictures Tish has included there, this is the narrative that should accompany them for the UFO section of the meeting.
Several people shared; Jo Ann about her piles of quilt UFO’s, Janice and her “I will do just this one panel” California quilt (look to the website for the photos of these, they are too large to load on this email). Janice called this the quilt as you go half ass method(I think there is a class in this coming up). Georgia asked for advice on finishing a paper pieced quilt(the consensus was to keep the white), Barb shared her new organizing venture into embroidery and the tricky method of keeping all those threads from creeping out of the box and into your house, she shared that she has been in the “zone with this” for a while now. Su gets the prize for the oldest; 17 years and 5 years. Mary C used a center that will now be a firefighters quilt-oops better add that to the tally, and showed us a creative solution to a quilt finish(cutting and resewing the whole thing). Margaret made a quilt with odds and ends, Sharon talked and showed dream landscapes, Miriam gets the prize for the longest to go without starting-lots of suggestions about sew day, and then talk of how she fell for the fabric…..none of us could relate.
Denise received suggestions of how to incorporate four separate pieces and what to use it for. We saw and heard many small quilt ideas. Kathryn shared about pinning and no pinning and believing that “everything will come together in the end”. Andrea brought in an epic stack of “leaders and enders” and stopped a mad rush when she put them back in her bag to take home.
Mary C. showed us again the partial piecing instruction she gave on Tuesday (sew day). here are the instructions as I captured them with her contact number so you can reach out if you need to, as well as a sample quilt she completed using the technique. she is showing us y seams next but would be happy to answer questions about this method at the next sew day if you are just getting started. Thanks again Mary.
