Crazy Quilters' Quilt Guild

NQA Chapter #PA 497

No. 251 www.crazyquilters.org February 2012

The Crazy Quilters’ Quilt Guild Meets the first Tuesday of every month* at The Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit 3461 Cedar Crest Boulevard Emmaus, PA 18049 7:00pm www.crazyquilters.org Email: info@crazyquilters.org *except November If there are any more out there you plan on donating please email me and I will arrange to pick them up. What else is great about our guild? We had an amazing response to sign up for the next workshop - only one spot remains open! I think it’s that energy I sensed at the January meeting! We have a stunning raffle quilt that is traveling around raising money for the guild. We have generous members who gave time, energy and skill to create it and also work to sell tickets. We are very fortunate that we only have one position to fill on the board this year. This means that now we need someone (or two) people to step up and offer to be the next program and workshop chairs. Please think about it, talk to Jackie and Val or to other members who have done the job. They will be there to guide you and help plan our next year. Your guild needs you! Lastly, calling all board members and committee chairs I would like to gather for a brief board meeting on January 31st at 7pm, at my home. Please let me know if you will be attending by email and I will send you directions. If you cannot attend please email a report to me. Keep on Stitching, Julie Challenge	Jane Grove janegrove@hotmail.com Stay tuned! The 2010 Challenge will be presented at the December meeting, and then subsequently printed on the web-site and in the newsletter. _________________________ Web News Allen Bernstein	Almax626@msn.com Hi again from the web, What a great meeting we had in August. Some faces old, some faces new. It matters not as our web site www.crazyquilters.org is for everyone. Take a look at new pictures, our newsletter and a picture of our raffle quilt. AND shortly after our meeting in September there will be some exciting changes. Stay tuned! From the President
Julie Borden
Happy Winter, I hope you are all getting those projects done and staying in away from the cold weather. My family spent our second Christmas in Pennsylvania this year and it was very nice and very relaxing. Since we moved to PA 21 years ago we would always travel to WI to be with family for the holiday. As our families changed and grew we found it was a good time for us to start staying here and make new traditions with our own growing family. Our granddaughter was very entertaining and only needed one gift, so we put the rest of her gifts away for her birthday in April. She happens to be in love with all things baby, which is good since our best Christmas gift was learning that she will be a big sister this year! My personal New Year’s sewing goal will be to continue to finish what I have started. I am going to complete my daughters t-shirt quilt that we started this past summer and I will finish my second block of the month from last year. My New Year’s Resolution is to only purchase fabric that I “need.” I will keep you posted on how well that goes. This is a great time to plan for the upcoming year in our guild. I’ve always thought that a guild is only as good as its members. Well ladies and gentleman - Ours is great! Our Community Service Night on January 3rd was a success. It was well attended and there was a lot of energy in the room. I was able to gather most of the bears needed for my school bear stuffing project. For all the classes to participate we need 225 bears. I brought home 200 from the meeting! Community Service Lorraine Bujnowski
Thank you to everyone who worked on teddy bears, breast cancer pillows and preemie quilts last month. I am sure that Julie's students will enjoy stuffing the bears later this month. We will continue to collect breast cancer pillows, preemie quilts and teddy bears if you have some completed. The Veterans Sanctuary quilt pattern has been decided and I should have patterns ready for taking at the February meeting. As a group we will individually work on blocks and then put them together to complete the quilt. The committee is in the process of planning a working day to work on our Camp Erin quilts either in February or March. As soon as a day is planned we will let you know. If you are looking for an easy pattern to use, see me. Lorraine Bujnowski 20th Anniversary Quilt We are hoping that everyone who participated in the block a month anniversary quilt last year has their quilt completed. If not, continue working on your quilts because we would like to have a show and tell of the quilts in March or April. Ellen and Lorraine	_______________________________ Hospitality	Diana DeFanti Thanks to the volunteers for providing refreshments for the January 2012 meeting. They were Doris Horwath, Sharon Pieller, Becky Marx, Karen Hartzell and Marya Anig. February volunteers are Julie McDonell, Kim Orndorf, Pam Bonina, Kathy Laposata, Sandy O’Connor, Kathy Flickinger and Linda Herman. You will receive a reminder before the meeting. .	Bee News	Diana Campbell The Honey Bees, our daytime bee, will gather at the home of Joyce Haeflinger on February 15th at 9:00 a.m. If you are planning to attend, please R.S.V.P. to Joyce, and bring some hand work and a bag lunch.	See you there. ______________________________ Programs	Jackie Leipert/Val Johnson At our February meeting we will have popcorn and a movie. The movie we are showing is rated PG or maybe it’s PG-13. Either way it is appropriate for quilters of all ages and levels of experience. It may star one or more of the following actors…Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, George Clooney and/or Angelina Jolie. To find out the details you will have to come to the meeting on Feb 7th. At our meeting in March Susan Ball Faeder will present her program on Japanese Traditional Textiles. Check out the Crazy Quilter website www.crazyquilters.org under meetings/events to read more about Susan. It should be a great program! _____________________________ Challenge	Jane Grove Have you considered making your challenge quilt out of flannel, or a combination of home-spun and flannel? Instructions for the challenge quilt are on the guild's website as well as on the back table at each meeting. Thanks to those who brought stamps for wounded vets to our January meeting. For those who forgot to bring their stamps to the meeting, please bring them to a future meeting as this is a year-long project. Thanks to your help I was able to send a shoe box full of stamps (after trimming) to the hospitalized vets. This has been a project of the Lions Club International since 1947. Mini-Class Before Meeting Carole Whaling
walingcj@aol.com There will be a mini-class at the June meeting. Topic to be advised. __________________________ Raffle Quilt Nancy Skok nancys@wfmc.com Our raffle quilt is now on display at ASMO. We still need some people to fill-in on Saturday afternoon at the Hershey Quilt show, July 24th. Thanks! . Hospitality	Diana DeFanti	defantid@gmail.com Thank you to the following members for their donations and assistance for our dessert table at the April meeting: Val Johnson, Irene Oehmke, Nancy Thomas, Lynn Gilbert, Nancy Horning, Ruth Hoffman and Diana Campbell. Members who signed up to bring a dessert for the May meeting are: Carole Whaling, Angela Assorgi, Tami Jones, Deb Veshinfsky, Mary Collins, Sandra Mugridge and Liz Dimmich.
Hospitality	Jackie Leipert	djleipert@verizon.net	Thank you the Julie Mc Donell and her committee, Karen Landis, Diane Pesola, Diana Campbell, Linda Herman and Jackie Leipert for the delicious refreshments at our July meeting.
I will be the coordinator for August's volunteers who will be Irene Oehmke, Pat Haberle, Kathryn Heffrich, Karen Hartzell and Becky Marx.
Our September meeting with its Anniversary Potluck Supper is fast approaching. Everyone is asked to bring a food item (protein, pasta, fruit, vegetable, dessert, or drink). Plugging in pots is discouraged for safety reasons. We have tablecloths but our tradition has been to bring our own place settings and to make individual tables more festive, flower arrangements for the table. Put on your thinking caps as to what you will prepare and sign up to bring your specialty at our next month's meeting. Thanks. be Irene Oehmke, Pat Haberle, Kathryn Heffrich, Karen Hartzell and Becky Marx.

Tips and Ideas	from the Crazy Quilter

The Ahhh-Haaa Moment

Did you ever have one of those ahhh-haaa moments in your quilting life, of course you have, when something clicks or when someone explains an easier way to do something, and you hit yourself upside your head and wonder why you haven’t thought of it before?! Well this is about my one of my more memorable ahhh-haaa moments.

For years I made quilts at home all by myself, having had a few early classes. However, those classes were about making quilts the old fashioned way. We used templates and there was no rotary cutting at the time, or it was just a fledgling technique. So I started with what were considered beginner patterns. Double Irish chain, nine patch and double nine patch were my first quilts. (Notice there are no triangles involved in my early quilts – thus the beginner status, I suppose.) And I made my quilts the old fashioned way as I was taught.

In those early days I worked really hard at matching my seams, even beginner quilts have seams to match. And I spent what amounted to hours correcting mismatched seams, sometimes over and over again. My seam ripper was my friend. I completed those early quilts to my satisfaction thinking I had become one with the generations of quilters who came before me who struggled to make seams match.

Then I joined the guild and learned of new classes out there, so I started taking classes to learn the new ways to make quilts. In one of those early classes I had my ahhh-haaa moment. I’m not sure in which class it was nor even who the teacher was (does it count if you don’t remember where you were at the time that it happened?) Anyway, the light bulb went on when it was explained that if the seam allowances of pieced units were pressed in opposite directions they would nestle together and match perfectly when stitching together. Dah! Ever since that moment, I always think about which way the seams need to be pressed in order for the pieces to match with little or no effort, so little effort that I never use pins anymore in the process.

So the tip here, whether you’re new to quilting or not, is to think about how you press your seam allowances. My early quilts had seam allowances pressed every which way, sometimes folding over themselves, hence the struggle with matching my seams. Plus, what a pain it was to quilt through all of that! I didn’t know any better. I couldn’t imagine that quilters bothered with the back of their work. Not so. Whether you hand quilt or machine quilt or whether you send your work to your favorite long-arm quilter, the quilting will be easier and your finished quilt will be better for the reduced bulk in your seams by having pressed correctly. And your seams will match. Ahhh-Haaa!

How to Fill a Program Calendar in a Few Easy Steps	Val Johnson/Jackie Leipert

First of all, it’s not that hard. (That’s why we called it “a few easy steps”.) You will have many more ideas and suggestions than you will have meeting slots.

So, where do you start? There are several months that are filled for you by yearly events. September is the Annual Potluck. November there is usually no meeting due to the conflict with voting day. January is Community Service Night. Three done already!

December you can pick something with a Holiday theme. February, pick something simple. (Popcorn and a Movie this year.) This is recommended due to the possibility of bad weather. It’s probably easy to cancel something like this.

That takes care of five months and you really haven’t had to do much work at all yet.

Seven meetings left to fill…

There is the MAQGNet meeting in the spring (usually April, usually held in NJ) where you can meet up with program chairs from other guilds in the northeast. MAQGNet maintains a data base on their website with a large list of people who love to make presentations and do workshops for quilt guilds. During the meeting the group will go through the list and program chairs will share their experiences with people who have lectured at their guild over the last year or two. There are also usually 2-4 guest lecturers who will give short sample presentations to give you a taste of what they have to offer. Remember these are people who do this as a full or part-time job. They want to come to speak to your guild. This is what they love to do! Most are very accessible by email and will get back to you quickly. We picked two people from this list this year.

Five meetings left…

There are members in your own guild who are willing to give a program on what excites them about quilting. We asked two members to do programs this year. Both graciously said “yes”.

Three meetings left…

Members and friends of members will make suggestions for speakers who may not be on any of the above lists. Google, websites and email make these people easy to contact. Most are thrilled to expand their circle of contact. We asked two people from outside the area to come visit our guild this year.

Just one meeting left!

Owners of quilt shops are often experienced teachers and love to come share their love of quilting with others. Since the contact helps them expand their business they sometimes don’t even charge for their lecture! We filled our last meeting slot this year with a shop owner.

A few final things to keep in mind…You will not please everyone in the guild with every meeting. Don’t worry about it. You get to pick things that you think will be interesting, exciting or fun. You will get to make a big difference to your guild. It’s rewarding when a member comes up to you and says, “That was a great program!”

Library	Maxine Bernstein

Thank you to Adele Bush and Nancy Horning for providing the library raffle gift and to Allen Bernstein for selling the raffle tickets for the month of January. Janet Yandrisevits volunteered to provide the gift for February.

____________________________________________________

Membership	Sharon Schaffer

February Birthdays

Marsha Heimann	2/5	Ruth Skinner	2/18

Valerie Johnson	2/14	Pam Bonina	2/20

Frances Heussman	2/18	Janet Yandrisevits	2/20

Kimberly Orndorf	2/18

We had two guests: Mary Terranica and Nancy Keeler

_______________________________________________________

Phone Chain	Julie McDonell

Now that winter is “sort of” here, we need to be aware that a Guild meeting could be cancelled. Sometimes this decision can't be made until mid-afternoon, so a notice might not go out until 3 p.m. or so.

A current telephone chain is now in the hands of all “Callers.” These individuals will make a reasonable attempt to notify each member by phone. Notification will also be sent by email. However if, for instance, you step out of the house to shovel snow, when you’re done - check your answering machine. If the weather is questionable and you don’t hear anything by around 4 p.m., please take it upon yourself to check with another Guild member. (You can always contact Julie McDonell at 610-391-0264 or jmacone@ptd.net.)

Thank you to all our Call Volunteers who are “poised for action.” With any luck, your services won’t be needed!

_________________________________________________________

Raffle Quilt	Kathy Schuessler

Raffle quilt tickets will be available again at our February meeting. Also, we are glad to collect ticket stubs and money. At this point we have earned about $2800.

The committee is looking into the possibility of selling tickets at various upcoming quilt shows and other venues. If you have any ideas for us, please let us know.

Thank you for your enthusiastic support of our beautiful raffle quilt!

Guild Calendar from the editor January 31, Crazy Quilters’ Board Meeting, 7:00pm, Julie Borden’s home. February 7, Crazy Quilters’ Guild Meeting, 6:00pm, LCHS Calendar of Events from the editor Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival XXIII, 2/23-2/26, 10am to 6pm (4pm Sunday) Hampton Roads Convention Center, 1610 Coliseum Dr., Hampton, VA, $14 admission, www.quiltfest.com “Quilt Fest of New Jersey” a Mancuso show, 3/1-3/4, 10am to 6pm (5pm Sunday), Garden State Exhibit Center, 50 Atrium Dr., Somerset, NJ, $12 admission, www.quiltfest.com “Garden of Quilts” by Susquehanna Valley Quilters, 3/2-3/4, 6 to 9pm Friday, 10 to 6 Saturday, 12 to 4 Sunday, Hughesville Fire Hall, Railroad & Water Sts., Hughesville, PA, $5 fee, www.susqvalleyquilters.org AQS Quilt Show, 3/14-3/17, Lancaster Convention Center, 3 E. Vine St., Lancaster, PA, 9am to 6pm (5pm on Friday), $9 members, $11 non-members, www.americanquilter.com/shows “Celebrate 25” by County Line Quilters, 3/24-3/25, 10am to 5pm, Archbishop Wood High School, 655 N. York Rd., Warminster, PA, Admission $5 (seniors $4), www.countylinequilters.org “The Rhythm of Quilting” by Friendship Star Quilters, 4/27-4/29, 12 to 8 Friday, 10 to 6 Saturday, 10 to 4 Sunday, Montgomery County Fairgrounds, Home Arts Bldg., Gaithersburg, MD, $8 fee, (seniors $5), www.fridndshipstar.org “Quiltfest 2012” by Colonial Quilters Guild, 5/5-5/6, 10 to 5 (10 to 4 Sunday), Charles Chrin Community Center of Palmer Township, 4100 Green Pond Rd., Palmer, PA, Admission $7, www.colonialquilters.org “39th Annual Quilt Show” by Quilters Unlimited, 6/1-6/3, Dulles Expo & Conference Center, Chantilly, VA, www.quiltersunlimited.org “Pennsylvania Quilts ll: Patterns and Variations” at Packwood House Museum, 6/12-10/13, Lewisburg, PA, www.packwoodhousemuseum.com “Celebration of Quilts” by York Quilters’ Guild, 6/23-6/24, 10 to 5, Old Main Bldg., York Expo Center, York, PA, Admission $10 (seniors $8), www.celebrationofquilts.com “Quilt Odyssey 2012” - 7/26 to 7/29, Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey, PA, www.quiltodyssey.com Guild Officers President: Julie Borden First Vice-Presidents: Val Johnson/Jackie Leipert Second Vice-President: Sharon Schaffer Secretary: Jane Grove Treasurer: Anita Hertzog Committees Challenge: Jane Grove Community Service: Lorraine Bujnowski, Kathy Flickenger, Lois Drendel, Sally Waggoner, Ann Lineberger Historical: Nancy Skok Hospitality: Diana DeFanti Library: Maxine Bernstein/Michele McLaughlin Membership: Sharon Schaffer NQA Liaison: Irene Oehmke Newsletter: Allen Bernstein Phone Chain: Julie McDonell Programs: Val Johnson/Jackie Leipert Publicity: Alison Bessesdotter Raffle Quilt Marketing: Kathy Schuessler, Roberta Whitcomb, Sharon Yurkanin, Marsha Heimann, Jackie Leipert, Anita Hertzog Show and Tell: Maria Hance Sunshine and Shadow: Sandra Mugridge Website: Allen Bernstein Workshops: Val Johnson/Jackie Leipert