Due to the pandemic, the Englehart Quilters Guild’s last regular ‘in person’ Guild meeting was held on March 11th, 2020. The Executive offered regular ‘Block of the Month’ patterns in April and May to our 55 members to keep us connected during this new-to-us pandemic ‘lock-down’.
The completed March, April & May blocks were dropped off to a basket in a member’s front porch. Later, three draws were made at our February (Zoom) meeting. Three lucky members now had new projects to tackle. As we could not hold our Annual General Meeting in June to elect new officers, our current Executive agreed to continue into the 2020-2021 year.
The Executive has offered monthly Zoom meetings to our membership since September 2020. Instead of our regular Block-of-the-Month program, an experienced & talented quilter/ Executive member (Shirley Jobson) kindly offered a ‘Row-by-Row’ Mystery Quilt project. This stash buster aims to keep us interested & busy. Everyone would pull fabrics from their own stash choosing their own colours, a great way to use up scraps.
This month (April) we will get our Part 6 instructions. Hopefully, we will have a ‘live in-person Show & Tell’ at a regular Guild meeting in September. Here’s hoping! We also continued our ‘Back to Basics Demos’ covering a multitude of quilting skills for newbies. These serve as refreshers with members of our Guild volunteering to do presentations during our Zoom meetings. Topics covered: Quilting with the Internet, Squaring Up Blocks, On-Point Block Settings, Corner Stones & Sashings, Basting Techniques, Hand Quilting. Preparing Your Quilt Top for Long-Arm Quilting and Free Motion Quilting will highlight our upcoming April meeting.
Show and Tell
As well, we continue with our ‘Show & Tell’ portion of our meetings which everyone loves. Since not everyone enjoys the Zoom format, the Englehart Quilters Guild members are encouraged to send photos of their completed projects. They go to our Zoom leader (President, Lori Jordan) prior to the monthly meeting. We invited our Northern Canadian Quilters’ Association Representative, Lauren MacDonald, to speak as a guest at our March Zoom meeting. Lauren hails from the west end of Manitoulin Island. She provided much info about CQA & all it has to offer to quilters from all over Canada.
Our members now know how CQA can help to broaden their quilting skills & experiences while on their own individual creative journeys. Lauren added that they need more members to support Canadian quilters. We really appreciated her taking the time to introduce herself by ‘attending’ our Zoom meeting. Happy quilting everyone!