Meeting Recap (December 14, 2019)

Thank you to everyone who came out to Saturday's meeting! It was lovely to see everyone again (it was a packed house!), and we hope you all had a great time wrapping up the year with us!

• Gayle, our Treasurer, gave us the updated financial info. It's time to pay your 2020 dues, which are holding steady at $40 for next year. You can pay via our Paypal link or by cash, check, or charge at our January meeting. Dues are due by December 31 to remain a member in good standing.
• Krista, our Secretary, announced our membership numbers and passed out our MQG and STLMQG membership pins. We're now over 165 members! Note: This year, the MQG is no longer sending printed membership cards. If you'd like a paper copy to use for discounts, etc., you can access and print it online. To access your digital card, log in to your MQG account, click on "My Dashboard" in the right sidebar, then click the orange "Membership Card" link at the top of your profile page.
• Jessica, our President, covered several items:
• Our meeting locations have been set for next year. We're having to split between two locations due to construction at The Heights. All dates and locations have been updated on our Meeting Info page. Reminder: our January meeting will be at the new location, the Shrewsbury Community Center. Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar!
• We are happy to announce our new board members for 2020: Emily Amizich (President), Pam Hartig (Vice President), Lilo Whitener-Fey (Secretary), and Tess McMahon (Treasurer) will be taking the reigns in January. Thank you all for being willing to serve.
• 2020 committee sign-ups are open! A link to sign up will be in this week's newsletter.

• We said a huge thank you to our outgoing board members, who have given so much to the guild over the past 2+ years. We appreciate all you've done, Jessica Schunke (President), Marie Hill (VP), Gayle Larson (Treasurer), and Krista Robbins (Secretary). The guild also presented Jessica with a beautiful quilt designed by Krista Robbins to say thanks for all of her hard work and leadership. The blocks were sewn by countless guild members, the top was pieced by Angie Henderson and Terry Darling, and it was quilted and bound by Lilo Whitener-Fey.

 

• Terry Darling previewed our almost finished QuiltCon charity quilt at Saturday’s meeting. Thank you to Terry Darling for the awesome design and project management, to Lilo Whitener-Fey for the beautiful quilting, and to all of our members who created the blocks and pieced the top.

• The highlight of our meeting was the big ticket raffle. Thank you so much to everyone who donated items (we had well over 200!) and purchased additional tickets to make the fundraiser a success. We hope you had fun and got to go home with a fun new item or two.

• We wrapped up the meeting with another great Show and Tell, including these beauties by Linda Kocher, Dottie Vaughn, and Gayle Larson, among many others. Keep an eye on our Instagram page to see lots more pics of the meeting, show and tell, and our members' projects throughout the month.

Meeting #97 (December 14, 2019)

Hello modern quilters! It's our last meeting of the year and always one of our members' favorites. We hope you can join us!

Date: December 14, 2019
Time: 10 am-12:30 pm
Location: The Heights
8001 Dale Ave., St. Louis, MO 63117
*Childcare available, please see info here* 

   ===============================================================

Agenda:

-Welcome & Guild Business
     :: Membership Information
     :: Financial Information
     :: Quilting News / Around Town
     :: Reminders

- Activity: December ticket raffle! Use your tickets for a chance to win your favorite items.
IMPORTANT! You can still donate items at the December meeting. All the information you need about donations and how the raffle works can be found in this blog post.

---Break--- 

- Draw for raffle prizes

- Show & Tell (time permitting)
- Mix & Mingle

-------------------------- Reminders ------------------------------

:: We're still accepting dues for 2020, which we are holding steady at $40 for next year. Dues can be paid by cash, check, or credit card. You can pay at the meeting or online through our Paypal link.
:: Check those shelves for any guild library books you've got hanging around the house. We have several that have gone "missing," and Marie would like to collect all of our books to pass them on to the new VP. If you've checked out a book, please try to return it at the December meeting. Books will be available to check out again in January.

Meeting Recap (November 9, 2019)

Thank you to everyone who came out to Saturday's meeting! It was lovely to see everyone again (it was a packed house!), and we hope you all had a great time.

• Gayle, our Treasurer, gave us the updated financial info. It's time to pay your 2020 dues, which are holding steady at $40 for next year. You can pay via our Paypal link or by cash, check, or charge at our December meeting. Dues are due by December 31 to remain a member in good standing.
• Gayle, standing in as secretary, also announced our membership numbers and passed out our MQG and STLMQG membership pins. We're now over 160 members! Note: This year, the MQG is no longer sending printed membership cards. If you'd like a paper copy to use for discounts, etc., you can access and print it online. To access your digital card, log in to your MQG account, click on "My Dashboard" in the right sidebar, then click the orange "Membership Card" link at the top of your profile page.
• Marie, our VP, announced several pieces of quilting news and happenings (more about these will be sent via email).
• Jessica, our President, covered several items:
• This month's Hand-Sew Happy Hour will take place on Thursday, November 21 at a private member's home. More info will be sent in our newsletter. This is our last hand sew of the year, as we take a break in December for the holidays.
• Thank you to the SewMeSTL Committee (Heather Benz, Gretchen Watkin, Vicki Ash, Emily Amizich, Pam Hartig, Jenn Deck, Jolene Grosch, and Robyn Passig) for a wonderful retreat this year. We really appreciate all the hard work you put into the event. You can read a recap here.
• QuiltCon will be held in Austin Feb. 20-23. Member registration for classes and entries for the quilt show are now open. Quilt entries are due by Dec. 2.
• Our meeting locations have been set for next year. We're having to split between two locations due to construction at the Heights. All dates and locations have been updated on our Meeting Info page.
• We are happy to announce our new board members for 2020: Emily Amizich (President), Pam Hartig (Vice President), Lilo Whitener-Fey (Secretary), and Tess McMahon (Treasurer) will be taking the reigns in January. Thank you all for being willing to serve, as well as to the other members who applied for the positions.
• 2020 committee sign-ups are open! A link to sign up will be in this week's newsletter.

• We began collecting donations for our December ticket raffle, and boy did we get some good stuff. Don't forget -- you can still donate at the December meeting. All the info can be found here.
• Terry Darling and Marge Thomas collected the remaining blocks for our QuiltCon charity quilt and gave us a sneak peek of the quilt. It looks so great! They'll be assembling the quilt with some help this week, then passing it off to Lilo Whitener-Fey for longarming. Thanks again to everyone who's helped out!

• The Charity Committee collected the last of our quilt donations for the Project Linus project. We'll announce the total number of quilts soon, but suffice it to say, it's going to be a big number. Thank you to the committee (Gina Shelley, Lilo Whitener-Fey, Nancy Dlugosz, Emily DuBois, Ann Philiph, Patti Hawkins, Erin Chan, and Amy Suiter) for all of their hard work; to everyone who made a quilt; and to our wonderful longarmers and Nancy Dlugosz, who donated their quilting and binding services for monthly giveaways.
• For this month's activity, we did some in-depth demos on using Creativebug and Instagram. We hope you found them helpful! Members had a lot of great questions and tips to add as well.
• After the break, participants revealed their entries in the Mini Masterpiece Challenge (details on the challenge can be found here). It was fun to see the variety in all the wonderful pieces our members created. Good work to everyone who challenged themselves to combine and use colors in a new way, and congrats to our winners, Marilynn Maurer (monochromatic category and viewers’ choice), Pam Hartig (complimentary category), and Jan Ochterbeck (analogous category)!

• We wrapped up the meeting with another great Show and Tell, including these beauties by Sue Jackson, Erika Walden, and Patti Baymiller, among many others. Keep an eye on our Instagram page to see lots more pics of the meeting, show and tell, and our members' projects throughout the month.

 

 

 

Meeting #96 (November 9, 2019)

Hello modern quilters! We're so excited for our first monthly meeting since August. We've had a lot of fun things going on, but we miss our monthly check-ins. We hope to see you there!

Date: November 9, 2019
Time: 10 am-12:30 pm
Location: The Heights
8001 Dale Ave., St. Louis, MO 63117
*Childcare available, please see info here*

**Note: The west parking lot at The Heights will be closed until at least the fall due to renovations taking place in the building. We should be fine, but you might want to give yourself a few extra minutes to arrive on time. The main (east) lot remains open. Additional parking is also available near the AB Green Park on Laclede Station Road and Dale Ave.

   =============================================================== 

Agenda:

 -Welcome & Guild Business
     :: Membership Information
     :: Financial Information
     :: Quilting News / Around Town

     :: Reminders and Announcements

- Updates on QuiltCon, Officer Elections, and more!
- Collect QuiltCon charity quilt blocks
- Collect Project Linus quilts

- Activity: How-to Demos on Creativebug and Instagram

---Break---

- Fabric bundle raffle
- 2020 Committee sign-ups

 

- Show and tell/voting for Mini Masterpiece Challenge (challenge details here)
- Announce Rainbow BOM winners
- Show & Tell (time permitting)
- Door prizes
- Mix & Mingle 

-------------------------- Reminders --------------------------

:: It's time to pay your 2020 dues! Dues will hold steady at $40 for next year. You must pay by Dec. 31 to remain a member in good standing. Dues can be paid by cash, check, or credit card. You can pay at the meeting or online through our Paypal link. 

:: Planning your next solids project? Don't forget that we have a guild set of color cards for Robert Kaufman Kona solids and Essex Linen, Art Gallery Pure Elements, Moda Bella solids and Grunge, and Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids available at every meeting. Just ask up front, and you're welcome to use any of them to match your solids during the meeting.

:: Remember we have a lot of items due this month, so keep these in mind as you prepare: 

• QuiltCon charity blocks 
• Project Linus quilts 
• Mini Masterpiece Challenge entries 
• Donations for December raffle

SewMeSTL 2019 Recap

This weekend, we celebrated our members at the 6th annual Sew Me St. Louis retreat. This was the second year of our new three-day format, which meant even more time for sewing, socializing, and fun.

We also moved to a new venue, which allowed us to include almost 100 members in the fun with a lot more space to spread out.

The SewMeSTL Committee worked so hard over the past few months to ensure this was our best retreat yet. From finding a great new venue to collecting awesome raffle prizes, organizing 12 demos, and brainstorming lots of fun new activities, they really took the retreat to the next level. Thank you so much to the committee!

The weekend was packed full of bonuses as well, including the ever-popular scrap dash; a hand-sew happy hour; stretching and yoga sessions; a pajama party and games; and demos on a wide range of tasks, from machine binding and English paper piecing to making chicken pincushions and board basting. Thank you to the wonderful members who took the time to share their knowledge in the demos.

Our members also enjoyed an exciting pouch swap. It was almost as fun to see what goodies each swapper had stuffed inside their pouch. You all did some wonderful work!

One of the best parts of any retreat is seeing what everyone else is working on, and our members certainly had some beautiful projects to show off. Check out the @stlmqg IG feed and #sewmestl for lots more pictures of everyone's projects and the nightly Show and Tells.

We're so glad that so many members were able to join us, and we're already dreaming of next year's event. We hope you all had as much fun as we did!

Ticket Raffle 2019

Our STLMQG Ticket Raffle is always a lot of fun, and the money we raise goes right back into our guild. This will be our 9th year hosting the raffle, and while many of our members are well aware of how it works, we want to make sure that everyone can get in on the fun. Plus, we're making a few changes this year to hopefully improve the process, so be sure to read through the full post.

How the Raffle Works:
Members donate fabulous items at the November and December meetings and are issued tickets in exchange for the retail value of their complete donation. (If you donate items in November, we will make a note of the number of tickets you should receive in December. All tickets will be handed out in December.) Items are bundled, if necessary, and displayed at the December meeting. In December, members can purchase tickets and/or use the tickets they are issued for their donation to take a chance at winning donated items.

What Should I Donate?
Donations should be things that your fellow members would like to win and should generally be modern, new, and unused. There are, of course, a few exceptions (for instance, books may be gently used). The key to donating is to ask yourself -- will others in the modern guild be excited about this item? If the answer's yes, bring it on! If not, leave it at home. Do not use this as an opportunity to unload your magazines from 1997, that box of items you were going to donate to Goodwill, your more traditional fabric and items, or items that would otherwise be trashed or placed on the freebie table. 

Acceptable Donation Items:

• Quilt-shop quality modern fabric (pre-cuts, yardage, gallon-size bags of useable modern fabric scraps, etc.)
• Patterns for totes/handbags, modern quilts, etc.
• Finished handmade items (modern quilts, handbags, wall hangings, pillows, pincushions, etc.)
• Quality thread (quilting, applique, embroidery, etc.)
• Crafting supplies and sewing/quilting notions (English paper piecing supplies, embroidery kits, quilting rulers, etc.)
• Sewing-themed decor and art
• Quilting and sewing books
• Be creative! We've had donations of wine, chocolate, and restaurant gift certificates in the past, which are also fun.

Ticket-to-Donation Exchange Rate (November and December):

If the estimated retail value of your entire donation is…

$10 or less = 5 tickets

$11-30 = 10 tickets

$31-50 = 15 tickets

$51 and up = 25 tickets

Tickets for Purchase (December):
1 ticket for $1
25 tickets for $20

Ticket Raffle Directions (December meeting):
Buy your tickets and/or use the ones you received in exchange for your donation. On each ticket, write your last name and first initial or your full name (tip! bring return address labels to use if you don't want to write it out). Find the item(s) you wish to take a chance on, place your ticket(s) in the corresponding bag, and cross your fingers. There is no limit to the amount of tickets you can place in each bag, so if you really want an item, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. After the meeting break, winners will be randomly selected. There is no limit to the amount you can win.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!