Next meeting – September 22, 2020 – zoom opens at 5:30pm CST

Hi Modern Quilters,
Did you attend The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show virtually?  This Quilt Show was awesome as well as free! 😊 Wisconsin PBS did a fabulous job of providing a quality quilt show experience, great lectures, vendors, and more.  Bill Kerr had a lecture on great Quilt finishes;  Weeks Ringle- Palette Building: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why;  Tammie Bowser – How to Sew Art the Easy Way (making portraits); Lori Kennedy – Easy Machine Quilting, and Judy GAUTHIER – Sensational Quilts for Scrap Lovers were among my favorites.

I hope you’ve joined the Take a Chance Challenge.  The photos are starting to show up and the projects are awesome.  So glad to see that last month’s talk has been embraced by members of the challenge.  There are some great interleaving examples making their way to the Shutterfly Challenge site.  We’ll share the projects at the next meeting and roll for the requirements of our challenge for October.  It’s not too late to join the challenge but time is running out.  Signup, joining the challenge website, and posting of photos must be done by 2 pm on Tuesday, September 22.  The grand prize is $250 right now.

The rest of 2020 is full of great programs and we’re starting to book into 2021.  Will we ever meet in person again?  I hope so but we’re taking advantage of opportunities to book speakers we never could have if we had them come in person.  Hopefully you feel like you’re in good hands to continue to be inspired and quilt on!

Jill Fisher will be joining us on September 22!

Join BNMQG on September 22, 2020 at 6:00 to welcome Jill Fisher @pieladyquilts as our guest speaker.  Jill Fisher is an improvisational quilter from Iowa City, IA. Her specialty is working in a series with solids and telling stories with her quilts. Jill will present her lecture and virtual trunk show, “Unlocking the Joy in Scraps” in which she shares how to be inspired by what you have in front of you. Check out Jill’s original work at pieladyquilts.blogspot.com or @pieladyquilts on Instagram.  You don’t want to miss this one!

This event is FREE to BNMQG members.  Guests are welcome to join us for $5.50.

Guest Tickets for this event are no longer available. 

JOIN US on Zoom – Put a reminder in your phone or on your calendar and join us for our monthly meeting on Tuesday night (September 22) at 5:30 pm via Zoom.  This is a FREE event for members. Join us at 5:30 to allow time for people to join the meeting and for a little social time.  And as always, we’ll start the meeting at 6pm with announcements and committee reports, then our featured presenter – Jill Fisher, followed by a quick show and tell (of course). Please encourage your BNMQG friends to check for their Zoom link and invite non-members to attend. Watch your email – you should receive a link in your email to get into Zoom for the meeting.  ** The email will come from Lisa B from her work email at District87.org.  We chose ZOOM because it is the best platform to use as it works easily for people with all sorts of tech skills.  The email that you receive will have options for joining the meeting – the easiest is to click the link in the email to go directly to the meeting.  Read the email to see other options.   If you haven’t done ZOOM before, please join early in case you have any technical problems. Make sure to sign in using your name so we’ll let you into the meeting from the waiting room.  If we’re not letting you in, watch for a message in the waiting room – it’s probably because we don’t recognize you.  There will be a phone number to call in the invite if you have any trouble. The travel isn’t long.  The weather isn’t a problem.  ZOOM is really easy (just ask anyone who has attended our meeting via zoom).  Lisa B. does an amazing job of running the behind-the-scenes stuff.   AND if you’re still intimidated by the technology, email me.  We can have a private zoom (it probably would only take 10-15 minutes) in the days before the meeting so you can see how easy it is.  We want all of our members to be able to attend our meetings and it’s so much fun to see each other.

In the past we have had the opportunity to bring guests to our meetings and there was a $10 fee charged when we have a speaker.  We now have that capability for our zoom meetings.  We are offering a PayPal option for non-members to attend our meetings at the low price of $5.50.  There is a link to pay for a guest ticket for September’s meeting above in the program description.

Last Call to join the Take a Chance Challenge.

We’re going to roll for the second installment of the Take a Chance Challenge this month.  The time commitment can be small to participate in this challenge BUT  the reward can be BIG – right now, the Grand Prize is $250.

Pay via Paypal via the website or send in your payment via USPS.  But you need to join and have your “completed item” uploaded to Shutterfly by 2 pm on Sept. 22 to be eligible for the Grand Prize and the extra entry into the Grand Prize Drawing.

For more information & to register, check the website.
https://bnmqg.org/2020/07/28/take-a-chance-challenge/

Tech Tuesdays 

We’re getting ready for the Take a Chance Challenge and you’ll need to upload your photos to our Shutterfly site.  If you’ve not used Shutterfly for photos before (we used it for the Nashville QuiltCon) and you need a quick lesson, sign up for a Tech Tuesday session on Sept. 8 or Sept. 15.  We offer sessions at 11am and at 6pm on those Tuesdays and they will last about 30 minutes.  Signup and try one out.  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/904054fa9ad29a6f58-bnmqg

The Shutterfly Challenge site can be found at: https://bnmqg20202021challenge.shutterfly.com/

We are looking for more topics for Tech Tuesdays – anything tech related.  Want to suggest a topic or have something you can share with us?  Want some more information on Electric Quilt?  Please let me know.

BNMQG Election Results

Thanks to all of the members present and that voted last month.  . Results:   Nancy Powell – president, Kathy Cook – Vice President, Betty Woodruff – Treasurer, and Paula Meiner – Secretary.  We appreciate all of your support in the past and for the future  Thanks again to Gale Imig for her work as Secretary last year!

Membership

It’s time to renew your membership to BNMQG. 

I hope that you think your dues are being well spent and that you are valuing the programs that we’re providing.  This year has been a challenging one.  Your membership provides you with a membership to our guild (BNMQG), The Modern Quilt Guild (MQG), potential QuiltCon discounts, monthly programs and newsletters, workshop opportunities, and maybe best of all, a “place” to share your love of quilting with other modern quilters.

Your BNMQG membership runs from September 2020 through August 2021 and this year you have an option of how you would like to pay your dues.  Renewals for 2020-2021 can be made on the website via Paypal (see the sidebar) for $36.50 (which includes paypal’s fees) or you can print the membership form in the “About” or “Member” tab and mail a check for $35 with your payment.  The address is on the form.

Heart Beat quilts – Pick up a quilt kit now!

We still have quilt kits to pick up.  Hospitals have put a hold on taking any quilts at this time…but Pat Silva hasn’t quit working.  She has 30 quilt kits put together so that when the hospitals start needing them again, we’ll have some ready to give them.  Please consider picking up a quilt kit – blocks are made, backing, batting and binding are included.  They don’t take much time to put together and if you don’t like the quilting part, I’m sure someone else would quilt if you will put the blocks together into a top.

Please call or text one of these three people to make arrangements to pick up a kit to finish:

• North Normal – Betty W.
• Central Bloomington-Normal – Pat S.
• Southeast Bloomington – Nancy P

Rebecca Bryan

Rebecca Bryan will be joining us via zoom on Saturday, November 21 from 9 am – 3 pm for her Modern Triangle Workshop.  There are 4 seats available and they will be opened to non-members after this meeting.  So, if you’re interested, sign up asap.

Rebecca will also be our guest speaker for our November 24th guild meeting for her trunk show.  As always, this presentation will be free to all members and non-members can sign up for a guest ticket for $5.50.

Kathy Cook

This month we feature Sophie Zaugg, @lunalovequilts. Sophie lives in the

French speaking part of Switzerland and is a frequent award winner at QuiltCon.  Her quilts feature geometric and abstract

designs and are straight line quilted on a domestic machine. See more quilts, tutorials and patterns at Lunalovequilts.com.

 

 

The Modern Quilt Guild

• The 5th Annual MQG Mini Swap is coming
  Once again, we’ll be partnering up and making mini quilts for each other around the world! As in years past, participants will sign up and share their skill level, likes and dislikes, and any other information they feel is important. Believe it or not, MQG staff read everything, use multiple spreadsheets, and tap into our inner matchmaker to find successful swap partners!
  Swap Fairy signups will open in September, and Swapper signups will open in October.
• Quilt show entries open September 1
  The Quiltcon Together quilt submission process opens on September 1st. We hope you will submit the quilts you’re working on! The process is a little different this year and we hope you’ll find it easier than in the past. Since the quilt show will be virtual, we are asking for a different series of photos than have been required previously. This will help the judges and attendees fully appreciate each quilt!
  MQG staff member Colleen Molen hosted a webinar available in the member resources section of the MQG website which is full of helpful photography tips. Take a look at it.
• QuiltCon Update – did you read the email that announced that QuiltCon will be a virtual show? Registration started on July 15 but it’s still not too late to register. If you signup for a lecture or a class, your show ticket is free.  Look for your email from MQG that was sent on July 13 or use this link to register:  https://cvent.me/9a43lk
• There are some great recorded webinars to watch and new ones to sign up for in the MQG Resources. Check them out here.
• Consider joining the MQG Modern Classics Challenge from MQG. Using their special color palette and a quilt pattern that was previously released as Quilt of the Month patterns, make the quilt.  In my opinion, the color palette is actually quite nice!

Tech communications:

Website/Blog – Do you remember the password for our website/blog?  You’ll need this if you want access to the Member Only area on this site.  Contact Lisa Baermann if you need help – l.baermann@comcast.net

In the member area, please check the list of members and double check that your contact info is correct.  If you need to correct your information, please send an email to:  BNMQG@hotmail.com and put Attn Cathie in the subject area.  Thanks.

Have you joined BNMQG on Facebook?  The BNMQG is a NEW closed group just for our current members.  It was just started this year.  Here is the link.  1) Request to join the group, 2) answer two questions, and 3) you’ll be approved to become a member of this page.  You will be able to download files from this page for newsletters, workshop instructions, renewal forms, etc.  This was not possible on our Bloomington Normal Modern Quilt Guild (PAGE).  The BNMQG group is different from the public Facebook page where anyone can see posts on that page and files aren’t allowed to be shared.

 

Are you on Instagram?  Follow our guild @BNMQG and as you post your modern quilting photos, please use the hastags #BNMQG and #BNMQGquilts.  Want more Instagram help, let us know and we’ll work it into some Tech Tuesdays!

 

For your BNMQG calendar:

• September 22 – Month 1 Challenge photos to be uploaded by 2pm
• September 22 – Jill Fisher @pieladyquilts will present “Unlocking the Joy in Scraps”  pieladyquilts.blogspot.com
• October 27 – Month 2 Challenge photos to be uploaded by 2pm
• October 27 – Kathy Cook will present Temperature quilts
• November 21 – Rebecca Bryan’s Workshop (9am – 3 pm)
• November 24 – Month 3 Challenge photos to be uploaded by 2pm
• November 24 – Rebecca Bryan – please check out Rebecca’s website:  Bryan House Quilts
• December – Surprize – stay tuned!

I can’t wait to see you on Zoom at our meeting on Tuesday.  Call your BNMQG friends and have them meet you there.  Grab a snack and/or drink and enjoy the meeting!

Take care and Happy Modern Quilting!  –Nancy