Category Archives: Blog

June meeting recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

Forty six members with 6 members via zoom met on June 23, 2024 for the annual night of fun and games   President Vivian called the meeting to order and thanked the refreshment committee for the delicious treats provided by Connie Jo C., Judy O., Nancy D., Jean B, Mary W., and Nicole M.

Vivian thanked Ann C. for the excellent job she is doing with the Guild newsletter.   

Program chair, Nancy P. reminded members that payment is due for the annual retreat tonight  The total fee is $175.00, but only the deposit of $75 is due tonight.   Even though the event is sold out, members wishing to attend can sign up on the wait list.

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May Meeting Recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

The Bloomington  Normal Modern Quilt Guild met in person and via zoom on May 28, 2024 at Christ Lutheran Church, Bloomington.

Members enjoyed delicious treats provided by Sheila R., Anita T, Debbie P., and Rhonda D.   

President Vivian H. called the meeting to order and introduced Nancy P. who introduced the speaker, Timna Tar whose topic for the evening was “Stitched Mosaic”.   Timna told how she came from a long line of quilters  but had no interest in quilting growing up.  After studying art history in college, she began to quilt. Her first quilt was made along with her husband who was a math teacher and thought it would be a good lesson for his geometry students.   

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April Meeting Recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

BNMQG met April 16, 2024  at Christ Lutheran Church in Bloomington .  Seventy four members (52 in person and 22 via zoom) and one guest were welcomed by President Vivian H.

Teresa A. introduced the speaker for the evening, Carol Wilhoit, who presented her program “Get Your Stash Together”.   She began quilting in 1975 and through the years she accumulated quite an assortment of scraps.  In 2006 she realized her stash was becoming a burden and set out to organize her scraps, tools, books and magazines. During her program, she played a video showing how she actually uses rulers to fold her fabric scraps into manageable sizes which are easy to view.  

As far as organizing tools, you might use drawers, shelves or boxes.  Carol uses bankers boxes and plastic boxes depending on the size of the fabrics stored; she folds and stores the fabrics for easy view and selection. As far as books and magazines she organizes them alphabetically and keeps a spreadsheet for easy location.  

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March Meeting Recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

Bloomington Normal Modern Quilt Guild met both in person and virtually on March 26, 2024.   President Vivian H. welcomed everyone.   Great treats from the Hospitality volunteers!

Program Chairman Nancy P. introduced the speaker for the evening Allie McCatheren.

Allie McCatheren of Exhausted Octopus presented an interesting program “Painting with Scraps”.  A marine biologist, Allie began quilting in 2018 using scraps and thread as her “medium”.  She showed several of her “sea glass” quilts along with several others.

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February Meeting Recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

Sixty two members of the BNMQG met virtually on February 27, 2024.  President Viv H called the meeting to order.  She then reviewed some of the necessary paths for navigating the zoom.

Nancy P introduced the 5 members of our guild who had their quilts accepted at the recent QuiltCon.    Those members gave a short review of their quilt. 

Teresa Arendell  stated she is always on the lookout for quilt designs whenever she travels.  This particular design she spotted at the airport in Dallas.  It was the pattern used in the carpeting.  She used navy for her background fabric.   She used very narrow strips of red and blue.  The quilting was done at ½” intervals using a heavier weight Aurifil thread. She also used a jean needle.   For more emphasis she chose to add additional lines running from top to bottom at an angle. Her quilt was named “Lines of Travel”

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February Meeting Reminder

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Our next meeting is on February 27th, via Zoom. Social time at 5:30 pm CST, with meeting starting at 6 pm CST. Zoom link will be emailed to all members on Sunday February 25th.

Our topic is Quiltcon 2024 Honorees! Since we have five of our members quilts being accepted to Quiltcon, the board thought it would be great to hear more from our member honorees.

❖ Teresa A.: “Lines of Travel”
❖ Kathy C.: “More Than Most”
❖ Judy Z. L.: “Boing-f”
❖ Karla K. M.: “Linearity: Points and Counterparts”
❖ Dawn P.: “Pink House”

They will be speaking about their quilts, how their vision developed, and more! If you would like to enter a quilt to Quiltcon next year, be sure to bring your questions to the February meeting. All BNMQG members attending Quiltcon will be documenting their Quiltcon experiences through pictures and more! Check out our Facebook page as pictures are uploaded. Safe Travels!

January 2024 Meeting Recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

Bloomington Normal Modern Quilt Guild met virtually on January 23, 2024 with 67 members dialing in. President, Vivian H., called the meeting to order and briefly reviewed a few of the housekeeping details relating to attending meeting virtually. These included making sure you mute yourself unless you are addressing the group.

Nancy P. then introduced the evening’s speaker, Emilie Trahan. She is a self taught quilter, who is also a physician from Canada. In 2021 she won “Best in Show” at Quilt Con. Most of her quilting is done with upcycled fabrics such as sheets, pillow cases and clothing. She mentioned that she may use several different types of fabrics in one quilt. She excels at piecing improvised curves into beautiful modern quilts. Starting with placing pieces of fabric on her studio floor, she maneuvers the fabric until it is a completed beautiful quilt. Emilie is on Instagram @mili.tra Emilie will have 2 quilts hanging at QuiltCon this year. Judging by the comments afterward, the members enjoyed her presentation.

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November meeting recap

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Submitted by Barb S., Secretary

Sixty nine (69) members and one guest attended a virtual meeting of the Bloomington-Normal Modern Quilt Guild on November 28, 2023.

President Vivian H. opened the meeting with a brief review of using Zoom including muting yourself and putting questions in the chat.   

Nancy P. then introduced the speaker, Libs Elliott.   Libs is a fabric designer and quilt instructor.  She also heads an online group called The Sew Squad.  She designs her modern quilts using a coding program called processing.  By using the code, she is able to edit the code to produce simple, geometric quilt shapes.   She showed several quilts she designed using this process. Toward the end of the program, she showed a sample of the code she uses.   Libs explained she does not know what the end result will be until it is displayed on the screen.  

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November speaker is Libs Elliott

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Nov. 28th Meeting is one week from today!

Zoom opens at 5:30 pm: this meeting will be on zoom exclusively.  Meeting begins at 6 pm with Libs Elliott‘s Trunk Show!  Here’s the link to Libs’ webpage: https://libselliott.com.

IMPORTANT:

See QuiltCon Show – with an App 

Nancy Powell wants us to know that BNMQG members can see the QuiltCon show using an App that will become available during the event. You don’t have to travel! 

Register for free by Nov. 30th. https://quiltcon.com

Show and Tell by Zoom – Please put your quilts into the Facebook Album for November 2023 Show and Tell and/or the Block Studies Album!  You may have to click on Media to see Albums. 

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/BNMQG

October 2023 meeting recap

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Submitted by Barb Stevens, Secretary

The Bloomington  Normal Modern Quilt Guild met October 24, 2023 at Christ Lutheran Church and via Zoom.  This was our last dual meeting until March. Meetings from November through February are only via Zoom.

Social hour began at 5:30 with members enjoying the delicious treats provided by Barb B., Roberta D., Vickie A. and Dee B.  Those who provided treats in October as well as those who provided treats in September were presented with Guild rulers as a thank you.

The program for the meeting was presented by several of our members.  This was a hands on demonstration meeting with stations.

The presenters and the topics were as follows:

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