Do you find yourself drawn to the same color, style and design in quilts? This year our program coordinators are helping us explore our own quilting style. One coordinator describes herself as "traditional", while the second coordinator claims "I'm not sure how to describe my style, I'm always trying out new things in my quilts". In an effort for us to examine our own individual style, we have been challenged to complete a small quilt item for the April 13th meeting that depicts our style. Bring the challenge piece "This is me" to the April meeting. All quilts will be displayed and we will see if we can recognize the quilter by their work. The meetings this year will feature speakers with all different styles of quilting.
January 12th meeting. This was our traditional planning meeting for the coming year. No featured speaker was scheduled.
February 9th meeting. In an area blessed with a number of wonderful quilt shops, Glad Creations Quilt Block in south Minneapolis has been a mecca for quilters for over 30 years. The family run shop has been nurturing quilters of all abilities through their classes, workshops and mystery quilts. Sisters, Nancy Raschka-Reeves and Susan Dyer, who share the designing and shopkeeping responsibilites, have managed to keep quilters interested in the art by keeping the shop filled with quality fabrics and tools, that fulfill both the traditional and contemporary quilters needs. Nancy and Susan have been featured on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. Mom, Gladys Raschka, has been quilting for over 50 years and was named the Minnesota Quilter of the year in 1999. Check out the link on the Glad Creations site featuring some of Glad's wonderful hand appliqued work.
Their well designed quilt patterns usually start out as a mystery by mail that can be purchased in various colorways. The colorways usually cover traditional and trendy choices and just looking at a kit is a lesson in fabric selection.
Nancy and Susan will be sharing their story and will have examples of their quilts to display.
March 9th meeting. The featured speakers will be Jeanette Asplin and Sue Johnson the owners of the Quilt Yourself LLC shop in Savage. Quilting is a skill that has been passed down
through the generations. As technology
has influenced all aspects of our lives, it has also changed quilting. The sewing machine changed how we pieced our
blocks, the rotary cutter changed how we cut our fabric, cardboard templates
have been replaced by acrylic rulers. In
the 1980's Harriet Hargrave pioneered using the sewing machine to achieve
hand-quilted effects. Gradually it
became accepted that machine quilting was an art form to be embraced and not
looked down upon. Today we appreciate
machine quilting and its freedom. A new
cottage industry of very talented long arm machine quilters has formed. Machine quilting has developed into a free-form
glorious art of its own. And now, after
playing on their domestic sewing machines, many quilters are curious about long
arm quilting and would like to try it. Quilt
Yourself allows you to do just that!
Jeannette and Sue will join us to share examples
of quilts from their shop and describe their services -- their individualized training on their
computer-assisted long arm quilting machines and their “quilt for you”
service.
April 13th meeting. The featured speaker will be Cece Stricklin owner of the Thread Gatherer shop in Boise, Idaho. Be sure to bring your "This is Me" challenge quilt to the meeting.
May 1 & 2 will be the dates for special workshops available for members. The workshops will be conducted by Wendy Butler Berns and will be held in the Chaska Community Center. Both workshops will be from 10am to 4:30 pm. The May 1st workshop will be "Creating Captivating, Colorful Quilts". This is a no sew workshop. The May 2nd workshop will be "Captivating Cone Flower". This workshop will require the participants to bring their sewing machines. The $50 cost to CAQC members for each workshop includes specialty supplies and a lunch. In order to allow as many of the CAQC members as possible to participate, please sign up for just one workshop, and wait-list yourself if you want to attend both. Workshop size is 20 participants. After April 1st members will have the option of signing up for both workshops as space allows. After April 15th non-members can attend for a $75 fee. Additional fees will be added for any participants that are added over the 20 person limit. Contact Lisa S. for more details.
May 11th meeting. This is our annual comfort quilt sew-in. This year the club will be using Bonnie Hunter's Bricks and Stepping-Stones pattern for our comfort quilt. Prior to the meeting members will be asked to make and turn in individual blocks that will be assembled into quilts at the May meeting. For the sew-in blocks remember to use black and white fabrics for the stepping-stones. If not black then a very dark color. Use medium value fabrics for the bricks. Please use juvenille prints in some of the bricks. An assembled block will have 2 bricks and 2 stepping-stone 4-patches and will measure 6.5" X 9.5" unfinished. Here's a link to the pattern www.quiltville.com/bricksandstones.shtml
As always comfort quilts are accepted throughtout the year and you do not have to use the annual pattern for your quilt.
June 8th meeting. The featured speaker will be Marilyn Ginsburg from Hector, Mn.
July 13th meeting. This will be our annual potluck picnic at Fireman's Park in Chaska.
August 3rd meeting. Please notice that this is the 1st Tuesday of the month. The featured speaker will be Sandi Irish of Irish Chain patterns.
September 14th meeting. The featured speaker will be Linda Hohag of Brandywine Designs.
October 1 & 2 are the dates for the "Fall Splendor of Quilts" quilt show. Workshops for club members conducted by Kaye England will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday the 3rd.
October 12th meeting. The featured speaker will be Doris Hareland of Monticello.
November 9th meeting. The featured speaker will be Celine Perkins of Perkins Dry Goods patterns.
December 14th meeting. This is the date for the annual Holiday Party at an outside restaurant.
2009 meetings
January 13th meeting. This was our traditional planning meeting for the coming year. No featured speaker was scheduled.
February 10th meeting. The featured speaker was John Giardano. John discussed "thinking outside the box". He suggested that we open ourselves up to change and that we observe the things around us as inspirations for color and design ideas.
March 10th meeting. The meeting was cancelled due to weather.
April 14th meeting. The featured speaker was Nancy Kazlauckas who specializes in thread calligraphy, a free-hand writing technique that Nancy uses to write script on fabric. Nancy's work can be viewed on her website www.threadcalligraphy.com.
May 12th meeting. Six twin-sized quilts for local women's shelters using the "Lucky Star" blocks were begun. Two tops were completed and all works in progress were taken home by members to be quilted, bound and labeled. See the finished quilts on the Show & Tell page.
June 9th meeting. The featured speaker for this month was Jo Goranson. Jo specializing in the use of thread embellishment. Jo has turned her quilting efforts toward whole cloth quilts filled with threads. She has experimented with many techniques using threads and shared with us how she achieves her results. To help attain the results she desires, Jo has branched out into fabric dyeing and painting.
July 14th meeting. This was our annual potluck picnic at Fireman's Park in Chaska. Besides good food and good company we held a live auction and a garage sale. All proceeds were donated to CAP Agency.
August 11th meeting. This was a special meeting in which members were bussed to three of our quilt club members' homes. At each stop we toured that member's quilting work area to see how they organized their spaces. Thanks to Chris, Chris and Audrey for sharing their ideas and opening their homes.
September 8th meeting. The meeting featured a lecture and trunk show by Jane Spolar of Sauk Rapids, MN. Jane discussed her work and the inspirations for her quilts. She displayed quilts from her line of patterns, Quilt Poetry. Jane's work can be viewed on her website, www.quiltpoetry.com.
October 13th meeting. On Mystery Quilt night the mystery was revealed but still remains unsolved. Those members participating in the mystery are challenged to use their own creativity to see how they can arrange the 2 different blocks to make their own design, maybe adding a little twist with some extra fabric. The fabric requirements and cutting directions are in the August and September newsletters orclick here to download them. See the Show & Tell page for pictures of the sample quilts.
November 10th meeting. The featured speaker was Lori Allison. Lori gave us some background on how she got into quilting and pattern designing. Having a teaching background led Lori to use clear directions and lots of pictures in her patterns, so that the beginning quilter can get started without being intimidated. She described the elements of good quilt design and then treated us to a trunk show of her work. She gave us a little history of some patterns and told us what worked well and what didn't. She told us that even knowing how previous patterns sold, it was still hard to predict what the next top seller would be. You can view Lori's designs on her website, www.allisonquiltdesigns.com.
