April meeting fun in Arcade, NY

Hi everyone,

even though we were not in full roster this month (due to all of the unforeseen circumstances called LIFE :)  ), April meeting was great fun!
First - a HUGE thank you goes to our host - Creekside Fabrics, Quilts and Yarns !! Sandy and Cheryl made us feel welcome and special, not to mention refreshments, door prizes and overall fun!!

 Here are just a few  shoots of this lovely store:

In terms of minutes from the meeting - above mentioned life's circumstances were responsible for us missing our entire executive board, except for yours truly, so since I was flying by the seat of my pants running a meeting, secretary notes are a bit sketchy...but here it goes:
WNY MQG April meeting minutes:
- meeting was called by Marija at 1:30 pm and first we had a welcoming remarks from our lovely hostess and shop owner, Sandy Pirdy. Sandy distributed door prize tickets and we were busy filling them and putting them in the basket (fun!)
- Marija started the meeting and we had introductions from several guests and potential new members - always a joy to meet new quilters!
- MQG challenge fabric was distributed to all present members, with a note that deadline has changed - it is now July 25th. Several members will deliver them to ones not present at the meeting and all remaining challenge fabrics are with Marija.
- We had a reminder about our Feather block swap that is due in June, with a wonderful visual from Deb (see below!)
- As per Rebecca's plan, we talked about questions anyone can have about "What is a modern quilt?" - suggestion was to think about this and plan on having a more general discussion about it during our May meeting. Janice particularly mentioned need to also discuss what is "modern fabric" as often instructions in swaps can call for use of "only modern fabric" - and that can be confusing.
* therefore all WNY MQG members and potential members or guests - think about all you want to talk about on this topic for May meeting!
- last part of the meeting was our first Bee demo and discussion given by April's Queen Bee, Marcia! You can see photos of Marcia's block and instructions HERE or on our Flickr page as well. We all agreed that this will be a fun block to make! Marcia distributed strips for the block's background to all present participants and rest will either be mailed and personally delivered. These are due to be given to Marcia in May!

Here is Marcia doing her demo:

And then the highlight of every meeting - SHOW AND TELL!!

Cheryl, in dual role of one of our hostesses and a guest, showing her Kona Color Card quilt:

 Lisa showed us her daughter's quilt that got a whole new life! Story of this quilt is as beautiful as the quilt itself - Lisa and her mom Vicky would tell it so much better (please feel free to do so in comments girls!), but in short: this was Lisa's daughter's quilt that she had since childhood and it was loved to pieces - literally. Lisa decided to give it a new life and her mom, Vicky took on the task - repairing, re-quilting, re-binding... Now it will be given back to Lisa's daughter for her birthday - what a present and what a sweet story!

 Not to mention beautiful quilting by Vicky!!

 Deb brought her feather gorgeousness:

 Kim - aka a champion of Show and Tell - had several beauties for us:

 quilt for her son's wedding is now quilted...

 ...with a beautiful, beautiful label, only mother can do...

 more beauties from Kim - this one for a friend that is "granola kind of girl", so fitting! :)

 This one is "just because"...so it is waiting for some lucky recipient!

 ...and the back:

 This beauty is from Cheryl's young daughter, Naomi - WOW!!

Did I mention - I LOVE Show and Tell? I do.

Thank you to all who came to our April meeting - it really was fun and inspiring, although we all did miss you our "founding mothers" (you know who you are...he he) and everyone else who couldn't make it!!

Hope to see everyone and many more new faces in May - 'till then, KEEP CALM AND QUILT ON! :)

Have a wonderful week,
Marija

WNY MQG showed at a quilt show!

Hi everyone,

are you enjoying spring yet?
I know, I know...we had snow yesterday...but that is just a snafu! Stay positive! ;)
Not sure about you, but I am still smiling from all the visual impact, inspiration and just plain fun of the Quilt Show and hanging out together!
I am so, so happy that so many of you decided to enter your beautiful quilts into this year's Amherst Quilters Guild quilt show - we had a wonderful display of modern quilts and everyone noticed it!! YAY!!
So let's see some photos!!
Here are some general photos when we were still hanging quilts (all WNY MQG quilts were grouped as close as it could be done):

Isn't that an awesome display of WNY MQG talent??

And then it was time for some fun, on Saturday morning when many members came to see the show - so first things first, group photo!! (thanks to Rebecca's hubby Justin for all his patience! :)  )

On to seeing the quilts! Marcia was telling us all about her quilting here:

 

And some wonderful quilting she did!

See that snazzy label? They didn't come in time to be stitched but from now on we will all have them - HOORAY!
Here is some more beauties:

 Steph's quilt had a wrong label unfortunately...somehow the change wasn't processed in time :(

Isn't Pam's quilting just fabulous? Here too was an unfortunate mistake - apparently museum did not process Pam's registration, hence no proper label, and I was just determined to have this quilt in the show no matter what!
So big apologies go to Pam and let's hope this will never happen again!









Cheryl's Kona Card:

 Rosellen got an award for her classic beauty:

 Anne's amazing creations (left and center right):

 Robi's improv gorgeousness (that I don't have a very good photo of!! sorry Robi!!)

 Robi, Rosellen and my friend Martha's quilts (in that order):

somehow I missed to take better photos of those 3 above... anyone has better? (send them my way so I can correct my sloppiness! )

 Karie's garden beauty:

Karie got Vendor's Choice award - congrats Karie!















Janice's Octopi...yes, with a First place award!! woo-hoo, CONGRATS Janice!!

There were of course so many, many more beautiful creations. You can see more on my personal blog and on the Amherst Guild blog for now and I will post some more here too.
All in all - what a great weekend! Now on to dreaming new quilts, finishing current ones and getting ready to show them again this fall in Chautauqua - right?

For all of you who visited the show this weekend - what are your impressions? How did you like it? Did you do any damage with vendors? (I didn't! NONE! - can you believe it??)

Hope to see you all at the next meeting - next Saturday!!
Have a lovely Wednesday and enjoy the spring!
Marija