Here are a few highlights from our September 2023 general Guild meeting.  President Nancy Sandrueter welcomed everyone.  She asked Joyce Rodenhiser for a toast for the new year.  Joyce raised her glass at least 10 times to the volunteers of the guild for a successful guild year.

John Balliro announced that the guild will have representatives at Quilters Common on Sept 23 and 24^th to sell raffle tickets for the quilt to be given away at our upcoming quilt show.  He is looking for guild member to volunteer to assist in that effort.

Cindy Nile announced the upcoming guild getaway weekend.  It will be Mar 15 – 17 in Nashua,NH.  Registrations began on September 11. 

Gretchen Berkowitch reported on the November Quilt Show.  Of note, she asked that if any member has a veteran that they would like to nominate for a Quilt of Valor quilt to let Merle Gordon know. 

A show and tell followed.  Pictures of the quilts are at the gallery portion of the website. Click here to see.

Thanks to the Balliro’s, we have pictures of our member Linda Anthony’s quilt hanging at the New England Quilt Museum.

Earlier this year out guild voted on a quilt to represent us at the New England Quilt Museum. Linda’s was chosen. She deigned the pattern and quilted it with many,many designs. It is stunning in person. Her quilt is emblematic of the best of our guild’s quilters.

THE COURTESY OF A QUICK RESPONSE IS REQUESTED.

Quilter’s Common in Wakefield offering Summer Sunday Sit & Sew times to Guilds to work on charity projects. They ask that each guild have 10 to 12 attendees to reserve a time for the Sit & Sew. There is no cost to the attendee. It is Sundays through the summer from 12 -4 pm.

There will be a cutting table, irons, and an employee willing to assist you. Bring your sewing machine & a CHARITY project 👍.

If interested, please respond to Carmen Arnone at [email protected] with potential dates that you can attend.

Carmen will tabulate and get names/contact information to Kristin Callahan ASAP.

If interested, indicate the date(s) that best works for you so we can tabulate potential interest and schedule a date.

July 9th

July 23rd

July 30th

Aug 13th

Aug 20th

Aug 27th

Sounds like a wonderful offer from Quilter’s Common!

The Sit & Sew on July 5, 2023 was busy.  Several members brought hand work to keep busy while socializing.  Other members made pillowcase kits that will be completed and given to various charities when finished.

A big thank you goes to the volunteers who ironed, cut, coordinated and packaged juvenile pillowcases and snow man pillowcases.  A rough estimate was 70+ pillowcases kitted this night. 

Many members took one or more home to complete and bring back at a future meeting.  We have two patterns for burrito style pillow cases on our website.  Click here for https://hqgsaugus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Cosmos-Pillowcase-Connecting-Threads-1.pdf and RollItUp-Pillowcase-pattern.pdf (hqgsaugus.org).  More kits will be available for members not able to attend the July Sit & Sew. 

The juvenile pillowcase material came from material donated to the guild by the husband of Dottie Macomber after her death.   The guild membership through using this donation continues to honor her memory and the work she did for the guild.   

The Hammersmith Quilters Guild met on June 7, 2023 for its annual general business meeting.  First order of business was the traditional ice cream social.  Barbara Martinson and Kathy Connors were thanked for their work on the Refreshment Committee for the past several years.     

The members voted for Nancy Saundreuter, President; Kristin Callahan, Secretary; Joyce Rodenhiser, Program Chair; and Paula Fallon, Member-at-Large.  They will serve a two year term.  A joint Board meeting between the old executive board and the new one will be held sometime towards the end of June.  The membership also agreed to the proposed by-law changes.  The web administrator will post the revised by-laws to the guild’s web site when finalized.

During May, members voted on one of two quilts to represent our Guild at the New England Quilt Museum during their Summer Celebration of New England Quilts.  The members had to vote by only seeing pictures of the quilts and the quilting..  Both entrants brought their quilt to the meeting and explained how they came to make their quilt and their inspiration.  Gail Dwyer and Linda Anthony were the only two members who submitted entries.  Linda Anthony’s quilt, Butterfly Escape, will represent the guild at the exhibition.  The exhibition will run August 15 – September 9, 2023. 

The meeting ended with show and tell.  Click here to see some of the quilts shown.

For all those doing the Block of the Month for June. Click here for the corrected instructions.

Changes to the By-Laws

Thank you to Carmen for taking the time to review and recommend changes/additions to the HQG by-laws. The changes are available at this link. The changes you can see in the document show up as either red or blue. After a discussion of the proposed changes between Martha and Carmen, they then presented and reviewed them with the executive board. Now it is your turn to review. Please review the changes that were discussed at the May meeting. These will be voted on at the June meeting. You are welcome to send your thoughts and questions before the meeting as well to Martha.

Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs (http://www.evapaigequilts.com) provided a trunk show entitled “Consistency in Chaos” at our April general meeting. She discussed what elements she looks for when pulling fabric for your scrappy quilts to ensure a consistent look. She touched on her accordion half square triangle method. To learn more about this method, she provided a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates her accordion sewn scrappy half square triangle technique. The Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmer that she uses in the video is available through our ruler library.

Also at the meeting, Gretchen discussed the upcoming quilt show. Look on our quilt show page to see opportunities about how you can help make it a success.

The Hammersmith Quilters Guild held a one day Sit and Sew to celebrate the 2023 National Quilting Day on March 18. One of our members invited Guild members to her office to use the conference room for the event. Ten people attended. Everyone worked on their own project — wall hangings, Dresden quilt, charity quilt, longarming, strip quilts and more. We had lunch, door prizes, favors for attending, and each person received a plant to take home. D

Followup to the January 5th Meeting

The Ride of a Women charity sent two videos to thank the supportive members of our guild for their contributions to the charity. The guild received a special shout out in the first video. They said “Thank you Hammersmith Quilters Guild.” The money raised from our guild and matching donations will be used to buy goats and put solar panels on homes.