Wednesday, January 24, 2018

January Meeting Recap


We had a fantastic January meeting on Saturday!  We had a number of new members in attendance (welcome!) and we covered a lot of topics.  Peter from Fabric Place Basement gave a talk about his career in fabric and his thoughts about the future of the industry (on-demand fabric printing!) and our show-and-tell featured all kinds of lovely items.

Guild Updates and News


  • If you have not yet paid the final balance for retreat, please do so by February 8th. You can pay via the link at the bottom of the retreat info page on the website. Contact Susan if you can't remember whether or what you owe!
  • If you have not yet paid your 2018 dues, please pay via Join us! on the website. As of January 31, we will drop members who have not renewed from the guild's email blast list.
  • We are losing our meeting and show space at Fabric Place Basement  sometime this spring.  Although the exact date is still up in the air, we assume the February meeting is likely to be our last in this space.  While we find the right new space for our permanent home we may be slightly nomadic, so pay attention to emails and the website for each meeting's location. Amy Kidd will be leading on our space search - please stay tuned for an email and survey from Amy to collect your good ideas for meeting, show, and workshop space.
  • We showed off our two completed charity quilts and voted on which to send to QuiltCon 2018 and which to raffle off later this year. The Log Cabin is going to QuiltCon and the Irish Chain will be raffled
  • Our 2018 mini-quilt challenge will be to create a 30" x 30" (finished) quilt using half-square triangles. The meeting featured demos of several different ways to produce HSTs; Susan made this handy HST quick reference with all the tips and links to tutorials.
  • Don't forget to fill out the skills survey, which we will use to plan content for our Year of Mad Sewing Skills.
  • Emily Hofmann will be manning our new member welcome wagon for the year and our president, vice president, and treasurer are Emily Blatt, Amy Kidd, and Susan McKinney. Send your great ideas for new things we should try at any time!

Upcoming BMQG events 

Watch your inbox and the website for more info about all of these:

  • Our February meeting will be in the traditional time and place at Fabric Place Basement on February 17th.
  • QuiltCon 2018: If you are going to Pasadena for QuiltCon, please email Amy and share your contact info.  Those of us who are going plan to organize a dinner and exchange contact info so we can find each other. (Having BMQG friends to hang out with helped make last year's QuiltCon really fun!)
  • In March, retreat will replace our normal meeting.
  • Our April meeting will be April 21st at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA.  We will have a meeting and admission to the museum will be provided so we can all see the fabulous QUILTS JAPAN exhibit before it leaves.

April Meeting at the New England Quilt Museum

Our April  21st meeting will be held 1-3 pm at the New England Quilt Museum, with museum admission for members covered by the guild. This is everyone's last chance to see the amazing Quilts Japan exhibit, which displays quilts from the 13th Quilt Nihon from Tokyo.  The quilts range from traditional to modern (and beyond).  The workmanship (mostly women of course) has to be seen to be believed.  


Quilts Japan postcard

Pam Weeks, the Curator, has agreed to give us a short talk on the evolution of Japanese quilting, which is a relatively new artistic endeavor in Japan.  After Pam's talk, we will have show and tell.

We will meet in the classroom, behind the elevator, where a second exhibit, by local quilter Gladi Porche of the Cocheco Quilt Guild, is on display.  In addition to amazing traditional quilts, many of her own design, she has a number of Asian-themed quilts that complement Quilts Japan nicely.   

The Museum is located at 18 Shattuck Street in downtown Lowell. For those who are not familiar with Lowell, from Rt. 3 or Rt. 495, take the Lowell Connector exit.  From the Connector, take the Thorndike St. exit and follow that road around until you see the sign on the right at a light for the National Park parking lot (a mile or less).  Grab a ticket, walk through the mill complex, stopping at park headquarters to get it validated, and proceed down Shattuck Street to the museum.  It's less then a 10 minute walk.  There is also street parking ($2 for two hours); handicapped parking is free on the street.

Museum hours are from 10 am - 4 pm so you'll have time to attend the meeting and see the quilts (you are welcome to arrive before 1 to see the museum before our meeting or stay after).  Get to Lowell early and check out the National Park as well.   There are plenty of restaurants where you can have lunch before the meeting or an early dinner afterwards. You can find them online, but we'll supply a list at our February meeting.   

New England Quilt Museum building
For more about the museum, visit their website at nequiltmuseum.org.
This meeting is free for current BMQG members. Non-members are welcome to attend; we ask that you pay the museum's $9 admission fee.