May 2022 Meeting Recap

Submitted by Paula M., Secretary

The May meeting was called to order by president, Lisa B. at 6:00 PM. The meeting was held at the Christ Lutheran Church and via Zoom. There are now 107 members (3 new members joined tonight) with 50 attending in person, 8 via Zoom and 4 guests.

Refreshments were provided by Marge E., Karen G., and Noemi B.

Lisa reported on the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show which hosted lots of entries from our guild. We were honored to have a 2^nd place winner in Barbara S., and a 5^th place with Donna P. Congratulations, ladies!!!

We have several upcoming events in which to showcase some of our hard work. The Mattoon Arts Council & Lytle Park Quilt Show will be Saturday, June 11th from 10am to 6pm and it will feature many of our Kona Challenge minis. Come out to see the BNMQG Kona Mini Challenge Quilts and vote for a viewer’s choice winner! Weather looks wonderful and there will be lots of other quilts on display.

Heart of Illinois Fair is again having a textile portion that includes quilts. Info is on the website or contact Viv B. for more info – her contact info is in the Members only area. The fair is from July 19th thru July 23rd.

In Houston this fall will be the International Quilt Festival from November 2nd through the 6th. August of 2023 Decatur Area Arts Council – Anne Lloyd Gallery will show and jury our Kona mini challenges from 2022 and 2023 and potentially some of our Mystery Quilts.

Back by popular demand, we will reorder shirts this summer. Be looking for more information coming soon.

Pat S., Community Outreach chairperson, told us the heartbeat quilts are cut out and put together in kits. Heartbeat Design was one of the hands on stations for the night and all of the kits were claimed before the last group of quilters made it to that station!

If you did not get a kit, there may be opportunities to quilt or bind the quilts made from the quilt kits. Thank you all for your commitment to our charitable activities.

Modern Mystery Quilt Challenge coordinator, Nancy P., told us that only 44 turned in their challenge blocks this month. The drawing winner was Marilyn B., who received a book. The Modern Mystery Challenge has been broken down into different improv challenges for each month. They push our creativity to the next level and we gain confidence in new skills. It is not too late to joins this great activity – it would be easy to “catch up” – more details here.

MQG has announced the challenges for QuiltCon 2023 that will be held February 23-26 in Atlanta Georgia. Challenges are a great way to try out a new technique! They are:

The 2023 Community Outreach Challenge
The 2023 Windham Ruby+Bee Fabric Challenge
The 2023 American Patchwork & Quilting Modern Log Cabin Quilt Challenge
The 2023 Modern X Quilt Challenge

We had Show and tell, with volunteers helping to hold up items, so some items are not shown with their makers.

Fabric Raffle drawing winner was Dee Lyn and the survey question was won by Lynn H.

Members were assigned groups as they came through the door – we had 6 groups of quilters and 7 hands on demonstrations. This allowed our members who were putting on demonstrations to have time to go to the other demonstrations. We appreciate our members who volunteered to share a technique! We had a few more people also volunteer, so we are looking to potentially do another hands on demo night in the future.

Heartbeat Design – Pat S.

10^th anniversary improv Log cabin blocks – Erin H.

269 10^th anniversary log cabin blocks have been turned in so far. Keep making the blocks – these will be donated to the cancer center here in town. For every 10 blocks you turn in, your name goes into a prize drawing.