January 2017 Meeting Minutes

The first meeting of 2017 was January 14 at First Baptist Church of Crestview, beginning at 10:05am when Cindy called the meeting to order, welcomed everyone including our guest, and requested a moment of silence for those in need.  

Cindy briefly introduced herself as our 2017 President, and our 2017 Board - Natalie as our Past-President, Roxie as Secretary, Bobbi as Treasurer.  Wendi, our Vice-President, was absent.  Additionally, she introduced Loree as our Program Captain who presented an overall vision for ECMQG programs and asked those in attendance to complete a short nine question survey to help with planning. 

Cindy explained some of the expenses we incur as a guild - insurance, door prizes, supplies for charity projects, space rental, etc. - are paid for by our support of the block lottery and through the purchase of door prize tickets. 

Starting the year off with a celebration of birthday wishes, Cindy asked all members who were not present during the course of last year to please come forward to receive their 2016 birthday fat quarter.  Cindy also explained a change to this benefit of membership.

Going forward, the Board decided to simplify the fat quarter distribution from your birthday month to distribution upon renewal of ECMQG dues.  All ECMQG members in attendance chose a FQ!  Dues are $50, payable now. 

Cindy discussed the following concerns and new procedures; changes that have come from various conversations and suggestions with you and from observations at previous meetings. 

1 - Please show respect the person who is speaking by not talking with the friend who sits next to you.  Socializing can be done before or after the meeting.  Many times, ECMQG members have said how distracting it is when they can’t hear the information being presented because of talking.

2 - Start the meeting on time.  All efforts will be made to adhere to this.  Ava volunteered to be our bell ringer beginning at 9:55am.

3 - Rearranging the meeting space.  Our set-up crew will arrange entrance tables and chairs so that late arrivals will have minimal impact on the meeting.

4 - Show and Tell sign-up that emphasizes education. Think about where your project fits on the Modern Quilting Continuum which was our focus last year.  Provide details for the person tasked with posting to social media.  Categorize your project as modern, traditional, or utilitarian for a more cohesive meeting. 

5 - Staying within our budget.  We will meet in the smaller room on the west side of the church most times because of the savings benefit.

We paused for door prizes with Cindy discussing the differences in how animals are depicted by modern fabric designers vs. traditional fabric prints.  She explained that modern animals are usually whimsical, sometimes silhouettes, often given human characteristics – emotions, clothes, or props - while traditional prints are almost photographic replicas.

Our QuiltCon East top was shown with several details to be finalized.  Thank you to Marcia who agreed to be our quilter.

Natalie is the project manager for our Q1 charity project, a memorial quilt for Emerald Coast Hospice. They are the organization we made this quilt for last year, which was extremely well received by the families it represented.  Natalie has chosen a design that will accommodate the 330 names and dates needed; the colors are taken from our logo – mulberry (purple), salmon, bright yellow, violet, turquoise, dusty blue, pistachio (light green), and white.  We plan to assemble the quilt at our February meeting with ECMQG purchasing the iron-on transfer supplies and additional white fabric.  We have backing fabric in our charity fabric stash.  All sewists who wish to contribute blocks, Natalie will do the math and provide details via the Facebook group and Instagram.   

Other charity project ideas proposed for consideration were quilts for Project Linus and local wounded service members.  This led to Cindy reviewing our 2016 group goals and charity projects, and a discussion on the need for a Charity Captain.  Sherri agreed to fill that vacancy.  Please bring ideas and suggestions to Sherri.   

Moving on to new business, suggestions were made for 2017 programs and swaps.  Possibilities are a UFO sew-in; a program for hexies, decahedrons, and hand sewing; a program on sashiko. 

Loree spoke about programs, the talent we have in our guild, and rquested volunteers who are willing to present short, informative programs on topics they are passionate about.    

Larraine and Amy encouraged ECMQG’rs to be swap participants, stating perfectionism is not the goal, but education and the willingness to try new things are.

Cindy had red, white, and blue Plus blocks from an idea she and Wendi had last year, a UFO, which fit nicely with Faye’s local wounded warrior quilt suggestion.  Blocks in these colors will be collected continuously through May, at which time quilt tops will be assembled.  Cindy will post cutting details and size requirements to Facebook and Instagram.

Cindy reminded everyone that our Facebook group is a closed group, a benefit of membership, and non-members were being deleted. 

A quick discussion and show-of-hands-vote determined the first fabric swap of the year is Carolyn Friedlander next month.  We will return to three fabric swaps this year – February, May or June, and November – because learning about modern designers and using their fabric in our projects is important to our growth as modern quilters.  Future swaps are TBD.  Suggestions included Lizzy House basics (think Pearl Bracelets), Moda’s industrial modern blender Grunge, and Kaffe Fassett’s Shot Cottons.

Natalie presided over the block lottery, stating all who participated learned a lot from Amy about 60° triangles.  The winning ticket belonged to Amy who went home with 12 colorful units! 

She also introduced February's lottery, which Wendi had sewn together, and which we had decided upon as a group (back in November).  You can read Wendi's post and find directions here for the You've Got Mail! block. 

Larraine volunteered to fill the vacant Block Lottery Captain position.  Her goal is to continue as we have, with guest presenters and their ideas for modern blocks.  She will work with you on how to make this happen.

Briefly, we touched upon the year long UFO challenge from allpeoplequilt.com with Bobbi stating how inspiring and easy she found it.  

February’s program, a short introduction to color theory, will be given by Natalie.  February’s hands-on-on workshop after the meeting will be facilitated by Mary who’s going to provide her tips and insights for constructing this yoga bag from Modest Maven.  Mary regularly makes these bags to sell at craft fairs and says it is good project for utilizing scraps in the quilt-as-you-go technique. 

Natalie, as back-up-to-the-Treasurer, informed us that she had verified all 2016 entries in our accounting program.  We reconciled with the bank and PayPal as of December 31, 2016.  The 2015 audit is incomplete because of scheduling difficulties.

Our January program, No Scrap Left Behind, was Cindy's presentation about sewing with scraps of all sizes.  She readily admitted being heavily influenced by Amanda Jean Nyberg, aka crazymomquilts.  

Sewing with scraps comes down to organization, whether you sort by color, size, or shape.  Cindy says "you have to know your level of crazy" because the definition of a scrap is different for each of us. 

 All of the items Cindy showed were made with scraps.  

We ended the meeting with 15 Show and Tell items made by Elaine, Natalie, Mary, Amy, Kim, Roxie, and Maureen, all who were good sports with the announced changes to our format. 

Respectfully submitted,

Roxie, ECMQG 2017 Secretary