Betty is one of the BNMQG’s founding members and is currently serving as our first Executive Director.
Betty has been quilting since 1998 and she purchased her first long arm in 2008. Betty quilts for herself and for others, including award-winning quilts.
She will share many tips on how to Quilt Modern – this is for both domestic machine quilters and long arm quilters. Whether you are planning to quilt a mini quilt or a bed sized quilt. She will share techniques she has used including straight lines, curves, simple dot to dot quilting as well as the use of ghost blocks.
Our meeting is via zoom – check your email a day or so before the meeting for the zoom link. Can’t wait to see all of you!
The January meeting was called to order by president, Lisa B at 6 PM. The meeting was held via Zoom, with 62 of 95 members present. We will have at least 1 more Zoom meeting: February. We will decide about March at a later date.
Our presenter was Cindy Grisdela with a program that focused on the Anatomy of an Improv Quilt. Cindy discussed her process and how sometimes projects need to be on the design wall for awhile to figure out what they really need to be. She also said it is ok to take things apart and re-use them. Her talk included many pictures of her award winning quilts. Her workshop on Saturday was on Curves and Stripes. It was a sold out class and we had lots of fun.
The holiday meeting of BNMQG was conducted via Zoom on December 30, 2021 was opened by president Lisa B.
We had several rounds of our potholder swap during the meeting. Lots of creativity from all of the members who participated – just a few are shown here.
The November meeting was called to order by president, Lisa B. at 6 PM. The meeting was held in Christ Lutheran Church in Normal and via Zoom, with 61 members and 2 guests present. The next 3 meetings will be available only by Zoom.
Refreshments were provided by Maria C., Kathy C., and Barb B.
Yvonne Fuchs, coming via Zoom from Hawaii, was our presenter. She focused on transparency quilts and how to choose colors and fabrics for a transparency quilt. She showed many transparency quilt examples and talked about how she did better on some color combinations than on others. She uses each quilt as an opportunity to learn something – it could be about color or a sewing technique. To check value in her fabric choices, she takes photos with her phone and then turns them into grayscale to check contrast, to ensure that her values will contrast enough, but will not be too similar.
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.
Sylvia Schaefer – Zoom Lecture Members only Designing with Negative Space
Tuesday, October 26, 2021 6:00 pm CST via Zoom no guest tickets are available for this lecture
Many quilters enjoy the modern aesthetic but are overwhelmed when considering designing their own quilt. This lecture gives you concrete step-by-step ideas on how to begin with a traditional quilt block and then alter it to incorporate negative space (also known as background area). Plus, I’ll give you suggestions on fabric and quilting choices for your design. This is my most popular lecture, and works very well in a virtual format as well.
As always, there is no cost for a member to attend the meeting.
Submitted by Paula M., Secretary & Lisa B., President
The August meeting was called to order by new president, Lisa B. at 6:00 P.M. The meeting was held at the Christ Lutheran Church and via Zoom with 44 members present in person and 14 via Zoom, 2 new members and 3 guests present.
We had lots of wonderful items donated to the Destash sale, which raised almost $600! Shopping happened before the meeting and then there was a surprise half off sale during our break.
We did another dual meeting – in person and via zoom. We are working through the challenges that this dual setting is presenting. We will be changing the order of the meetings to always have the presentations first, even if the presenter is in person.
Sandra M. not pictured – she joined us by zoom, but sent yummy treats with Emily J.!
We had lots of yummy treats, provided by Donna L., Emily J., and Sandra M.
The virtual Wisconsin Quilt show was attended by many members.
BNMQG purchased a pass for the entire guild to be able to access the Global Quilt Connection’s All Star Virtual Sampler that was available on October 2nd and 3rd. We hope that many guild membes attended and enjoyed the presentations. If you liked any of the presenters and would like to have them as a speaker for the guild, please contact a board member.
Sorry this is a little delayed – I was exhausted (in a good way) after the wonderful BNMQG retreat. 27 members had a great time laughing, eating, show and telling, as well as getting some sewing done! We will have a slide show of the retreat before the meeting, in case you missed seeing the pictures on the BNMQG group FB page.
Our meeting on Tuesday the 28th will be held in person and via zoom, starting at 6pm at the church. We will continue to watch and follow any guidelines for the pandemic to keep our members healthy but engaged.
This meeting will also include our Destash Sale. So, clean out those sewing rooms and pre-price your donations (in dollar increments, no change please) and bring to the meeting early.
Please no patterns, magazines or books for this round of Destash Sale. If you have lots of little items, please group together in baggies and price as one item.
Doors will open at 4pm so that we can get the Destash Sale setup. If you need help getting items there early, call a friend or a board member and we can arrange something. Shopping will begin at 5pm payments can be cash or check.
One of our own members, Leslie S., will be doing a presentation on “How I Choose Color”. We all have different approaches to choosing color for our quilts. Are you more scientific – like the color wheel, or are you more organic – like choosing your favorite colors? In this discussion on choosing color I would like to discuss multiple ways of choosing colors for our quilts with a more in depth look of how we can incorporate the color wheel into helping us enhance and expand our color choices for the perfect quilt. Looking forward to her presentation – I tend to wing it and sometimes I don’t get the results I want.
The August meeting at the Christ Lutheran Church and via Zoom was called to order by President Nancy P. at 6:00 PM. This was our first dual meeting – in person and via Zoom. We had a total of 62 members, 3 new members and 8 guests in attendance (in person or via zoom). We had 36 people attend via Zoom, as well as our guest speaker Heather Black.
Our food was provided by Rhonda D., Teresa A., and Barb S. A big thank you went out to them.
Barb S. and Mary Rose H. are chairing the hospitality committee for this coming year and are looking for a few more volunteers to fill up our hospitality sign up. Please get in touch with either Barb S. or Mary Rose H. to see when you are needed.
A display was set up for an overview of our last 2 years of activities. In case you missed it, it is below – we were busy!
Tonight’s speaker was Heather Black. Her website is https://quiltachusetts.com/shop She is a modern quilter with a love for bold geometric designs. Heather discussed many options for using balance and depth when designing a modern quilt. She covered the rule of 3 and how odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye. She has graciously offered a special discount good through September 30th for BNMQG members which is posted in the members only area.
A Zoom poll and in-person ballots were tallied for the slate of new officers that was presented by the BNMQG board for the new year starting September of 2021 through August of 2022. The slate of officers were:
Lisa Baermann – President
Nancy Powell – Vice President
Paula Meiner – Secretary
Anita Tullier – Treasurer
The slate of officers were duly elected by the membership. Congratulations to our new board, that includes some familiar faces!
Reminders were given to renew memberships, turn in heartbeat quilts, and visit the library. A reminder to anyone interested in advertising quilting businesses, please download the form on our classified ad page.
We need a heartbeat quilt coordinator for this coming year. If you are interested, please let Lisa know.
Kona Color Challenge: We have a new venue next year at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Schaumberg. There is a possibility that a bus trip to the show can be arranged. Watch for further details and be designing your 20” square mini quilt.
Community Outreach Quilt Challenge – the blocks have been determined and a sew day will be set soon.
Block Lotto – Marilyn B. and Leslie S. have volunteered to conduct the block lotto for the coming year. For those that are new to Block Lotto, this is a fund raiser for our guild as well as a start to a great modern quilt for the winner of the blocks. Each month a new modern block will be demonstrated with a tutorial available. Bring as many of those blocks as you want to make in the color way chosen to the next month’s meeting and donate a dollar per block. For each block/dollar donation, your name will be entered in a drawing. The random drawing will be held and the winner will receive all of the blocks donated that evening. If we have lots of participants, we may have more than one winner. This has been a really fun way to try out new techniques. Hope everyone will join in the fun each month!
BNMQG retreat – Paula M. reported on the retreat that is to be held September 17 – 20 at the Hawthorne Suites in the conference center. We have all spots filled except 2. We will use Sign-up Genius to determine the order of the arrival of the attendees starting at 10:00 on Friday A.M. The retreat email including the Sign-up Genius invite was sent by Nancy P., so follow that link and sign up for your arrival time. Food will be provided by Tobin’s Friday night, Cracker Barrel on Saturday night and Bandana’s on Sunday night.
VP Corner by Kathy C. spotlighted Karen Bolan. She is on Instagram @karen.bolan.
Quilt raffle – Betty W. conducted the quilt raffle and Barb S. won the last of the 7 quilts that were given to BNMQG.
Fabric Raffle Drawing – Anita T. had a member draw out the name of Leanne F. who won the bundle of fat quarters.
As a thank you, Nancy P. handed out insulated tumblers to former and new board members.
Right after that, Kathy C. presented out-going President, Nancy P. and out-going treasurer, Betty W. each a quilt that was pieced and quilted by BNMQG members. Betty has been president, treasurer and has held many jobs for the guild since its beginning. Nancy is now our new Vice President – she is multi talented and we are so happy to have her continued leadership.
Betty’s Quilt
Nancy’s Quilt
Check out our fun show and tell.
Back of Pumpkin Quilt
Next month will feature one of our members, Leslie S. Her presentation is “How I Choose Color.” We will also have a destash sale to raise money for the guild. Members will donate quilting items and bring their pre-priced donated items to the September meeting for other members to purchase. Watch for an email for details about the destash sale.
Bloomington/Normal Modern Quilt Guild 