submitted by Paula M., Secretary
The October meeting was called to order by president, Lisa B. at 6:00 PM. The meeting was held at Christ Lutheran Church in Normal and via Zoom, with 25 members online, 1 guest, and 35 in person, for a total of 61 attendees.
A thank you to Pat S., Barb S., and Mary Rose H. for our hospitality treats.
Don’t forget that we have a BNMQG library – lots of great titles that can be checked out. Our regular librarian, Carol B. was with us via zoom, but Valerie S. volunteered to help out with the library.
This month’s presenter was Sylvia Schaefer who spoke on Designing with Negative Space. The 2 biggest lessons from her presentation were that negative space gives your eye a place to rest, and it helps move your eye from 1 place to another. She showed lots of slides of her quilts and the different ways she has used negative space. Sometimes she uses blocks in a row or column and sometimes her quilting has “ghost” blocks.
Community Outreach chairperson, Pat S., announced she had 6 members on her committee: Melissa K., Noemi B., Maria C., Rita G., Valerie S., and Paula M. The Board met earlier today and cut all of the strips, batting, and backing for 30 quilts that will be kitted and distributed to members for completion for this year’s Heart Beat Quilts.
Block Lotto – Leslie S. and Marilyn B. presented next month’s block instructions and the links to the MQG tutorial and the paper piecing template are available on our Block Lotto page. 33 blocks were made for this month’s drawing. The winners for October were Maria C. and Pat S. Make as many of the November Smoosh blocks as you want to make, bring your $1 for each block and be entered to win the blocks!
There will be a member in-person sew day on November 6 from 9 – 3. We will be strip piecing for the Heart Beat quilts, making Neck Wallets and Name Tag Holders, and will be provided help with paper piecing for the Block Lotto.
Sew Together Bags workshop will be held on Saturday, December 4, and the instructor will be Lori L. Sign up is available on our website. Patterns are also available on the website if you don’t already own a pattern.
Our Destash Sale was a success! We made over $600 and that was enough to almost pay for 2 speakers.
December’s meeting will be December 28 and will be held via Zoom ONLY. We are conducting a pot holder exchange. Please sign up by Sign Up Genius. Partners will be drawn and made public to swappers. We are to make a pot holder and wrap it up. Prior to the December meeting we are to exchange our wrapped pot holders with our partner. At the meeting, we will take turns unwrapping them.
Although the Sewing and Quit Expo that was to be held in Chicago in 2022 won’t be held, we are looking for other places to display our Kona 20 x 20 minis.
Our first Modern Quilt Showcase was set up in the Hands All Around Quilt Guild’s quilt show on October 29 and 30. We had examples of our work and some information on what a modern quilt really is. Thank you to all of the members who loaned us their quilts for the Showcase. And thank you to those who signed up to be at our display to help explain and answer any questions that people might have about what a modern quilt is. The display was very striking and was one of the first things seen as people arrived to the show. Big Thanks to Nancy P. and Kathy C. for all of the time and energy that they put into the display. It was an excellent display of modern quilting and we appreciate your efforts!
Gwynne B., quilt show chair for HAAQG and one of our modern members gave an interview to WEEK 25 in front of the Modern Showcase. You can see all of the quilts from the showcase on this shutterfly site and it also includes pictures of the full HAAQG quilt show.
Survey question: How much do you think about negative space when designing a quilt? Looks like our group does a pretty good job of thinking about negative space when designing a quilt. Survey question winner was Sally H. and Fabric Raffle’s winner was Mary Rose H.
VP Corner – Nancy P. – Nancy gave a Mystery Block introduction for her block of the month program that will start in January. She will have directions/videos during the month that will give tips on the blocks that we can watch at our convenience. Sign up on our events page and pay a small fee of $25 for chances to win monthly prizes, learn new techniques, construct a whole mystery quilt in the end and/or win the final cash prize! This is a fun opportunity to challenge yourself with new skills and it will be a good time!
MQG update – Modern Quilt Convention is being held in Phoenix February 16-20. By a show of hands, our guild will be nicely represented.
A retreat survey was emailed to everyone that attended and our results were very favorable. Everyone pretty much agreed for it to continue to be held in the Bloomington/Normal area. The sewing space was great and the swag bags and mini classes were wonderful. The food was excellent. We call that a success!!
It is highly recommended that everyone read the By-Law changes that are being proposed. The proposed changes are posted to the Members only page and were emailed out to all members as of November 1st. The Board has meticulously gone through and made minimal changes and proposed a new BNMQG Director position. Any new wording will be in red and anything taken out will have a strike through it. We will again discuss them in November and vote on them in January. If you have any questions, please contact a Board member.
We had Show and Tell.
We were reminded that our November meeting will be held on the 5th Tuesday, November 30, due to Thanksgiving. There will be an option to view the November meeting on Zoom. Our December meeting will only be available via Zoom on December 28.
November’s meeting will have guest speaker, Yvonne Fuchs whose presentation will be on Transparency Color Quilts. She will be coming via Zoom from Hawaii. Guest tickets are available on our website.
Bloomington/Normal Modern Quilt Guild 