Author: Heart in Hand

President’s Message

Hello Thumb Butte Quilters!

Hi everyone!  I’m sorry I missed the November meeting, but my new granddaughter was not informed of the guild meeting schedule.  She arrived on 11/4 @ 11:04 pm.  Mama and baby are doing great and Mimi (me) has been busy running errands, watching other grandkids, and getting baby snuggles on the side. 

I’m staying in our 5^th wheel in Santee, California for 30 days.  It certainly has been bringing back memories of our nomad days, before we established our home base in Prescott.  We traveled all over the United States for 5 years after we sold everything we owned and left San Diego.  My husband was a trouper and would drive me to quilt shops in every town that we visited.  I usually purchased a few fat quarters at every shop and fought the urge to stock up on all the fun stuff I was seeing!  Space is limited, so I had to be picky.  I also had not heard of Missouri Star yet, so we were within an hour drive and never stopped!  Same with Paducah, KY…so sad.  Sewing in a small space was a challenge.  I usually talked my husband into going to play golf for the day so I could really take over all of the space.  I didn’t really enjoy it, like I had hoped I would.  Just too darn cramped!  That’s when I really got into hand sewing, embroidery projects and finding quilt shops that would let me sew for the day.  My favorite quilts were made in our trailer and my favorite scrap quilts came from all of those fat quarters I collected.

On this trip, I thought I would have a lot of free time after the day was over.  I brought lots of projects and tons of ambition, but I’m getting old!  By the time I’m done watching all the kids, I’m exhausted!

Very little quilting is getting done!

I will be back for the December party and I hear it’s going to be fun, fun, fun!  See you there!

Dawnell Muecke – President

PS –  Kathleen Bond produces the most beautiful and complicated quilts….her sewing room is in her laundry room!  How does she do it???

past-president’s quilt

Nan DeChant’s quilt for her service in 2021-2022 as President of the Thumb Butte Quilters was presented at the November meeting.

 

newcomers

On November 28th a dozen newcomers met. During our time together we shared ideas for making excellent 1/4 inch seams, had some great show and tell items shared, made no-sew Scandinavian Stars for Christmas and enjoyed Faith Chaney sharing with us the projects the guild makes for our Prescott community.

The Newcomers are the nicest group of talented women…the guild is lucky to have them!

Our next Newcomer Gathering will be after the holidays on Monday, January 23 at 10:00 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Park Ave.

Deb Johnson & Carrie Casto, Co-Chairs

Membership

Welcome new member Matilda Bristow.

Thank you!

Angela Smith – Chair

 

Programs/workshops 

Opportunity Quilt

Once again, our TBQ volunteers did a great job marketing our Opportunity Quilt at the “Holiday Boutique Lonesome Valley Quilt Guild” show in Prescott Valley held on November 12^th.  We sold $175 in tickets and another $81 at our last TBQ meeting! That puts our total at $2608 or about 58% of our goal of $4500. 

We have two events scheduled in December, so there are ample volunteer opportunities!

First, we are entered in a new event this year, the “Winter Spectacular” at the Prescott Valley Civic Center at 7501 E Skoog Blvd, Prescott Valley, AZ on Saturday, December 3^rd from 2-8 pm.  It looks like a fun event for all ages!

The second event is the “Last-Minute Non-Profit Stocking-Stuffer Bazaar”.  It will be held at Prescott Activity Center “The Old Armory” 824 E. Gurley, Prescott, AZ from 10-4 pm on Saturday, December 17^th. 

I am hoping to display our quilt at various guilds in our area after the holidays and will keep you updated as I find more events for us in the new year.

Thank you to all the volunteers that step forward to help so graciously!  Volunteering is a great way to connect with your fellow guild members and it’s an easy way to contribute to your guild’s fundraising efforts!

Remember, Christmas is coming, so think about buying some tickets for your friends and relatives for Christmas gifts!

Happy holidays and may you all finish your holiday projects on time!

Kathy Spry – Chair

Hostesses

December hostesses are:  Patty Brownsberger, Judith Dobke, Lois Doerr, Dianna Dunn, Lola Dyroy, Karen Eads, Julie Eastman, Carolyn Edwards, Linda Royce, Dianna Atkins & Michelle Anderson.  These ladies will be hosting our Christmas Fiesta Party.

Birthdays

Birthday celebrants – When it’s your birthday month, bring a wrapped gift suitable for a quilter, something you would like to receive, with a value of at least $10.  

December Birthdays — Carol Rabbitt, Jill Norcross, Karen Adams, David Charity, Catherine Ericsen, Phyllis Byrnes, Carol Wright, Linda Craig, Nancy Lefler, and Iris Lacey.

community service

Handmade Hugs

Our next workday will be Saturday, Dec. 3, from 9 – 3 at Stoneridge Community Center.  Kits for baby quilts, bibs, teen quilts and maybe some kits for making tops will be our task for the day.

 What a great turnout of finished quilts at our last meeting.  Many of them will be auctioned at our show in June since they were so spectacular!  If you have time after the holidays, sew up an easy pattern. Community service will take your lap size tops, add batting & backing and have one of our amazing quilters finish it off.

Thank you members for your generosity and talent. Your work makes many recipients happy!  Keep up the awesome work.

Faith Chaney, Olivia Turnham – Co-Chairs

Adult Center Display

Stop by the Prescott Adult Center on Rosser to see the latest TBQG display.  These beautiful quilts were made by member Barbara Merkel.

Carolyn Edwards, Chair

quilt show

We had our first Quilt Show meeting Wednesday, November 9. The meeting went well; identifying tasks for each area of responsibility, such as, Silent/Live Auctions, Quilt Check In/Out, and MarketPlace.

An update was made to the MarketPlace Chair. Sandy Mazzurco had to bow out of the Chair position due to health reasons. Cathy Day, Kristine White and Nan DeChant will step up to fill the void that Sandy has left. We wish Sandy a successful and steady recovery in the months to come.

As mentioned in the November Guild Meeting, what catches your eye when you visit the marketplace of any quilt or craft show? Are you drawn to pincushions, zippered bags, totes or quilt carry bags? Do you like witty sayings or signs depicting the uniqueness of a quilter? These are the types of things we are looking to have for sale in the MarketPlace. The show is two days, so enough inventory is needed to cover the two days. We don’t need hundreds of any one item, but a nice variety to display and sell. As the items for sale are completed, Cathy, Kristine and/or Nan will price mark and store until Show time, so bring items to guild meetings or contact one of us to arrange pick up or delivery. All members of the guild are encouraged to contribute to the MarketPlace.

The meeting touched on all aspects of the show from Admissions, Vendors, to Publicity. When discussing Kathleen Bond’s role of hanging the quilts, drafting the layout and identifying space for all aspects of the show, Kathleen needs a Co-Chair. If any guild member would like to be mentored and work with Kathleen on what it takes to ‘hang’ a quilt show, please let Kathleen Bond or Nan DeChant know!

Like all Chair positions we need a team to ensure the show will run smoothly and successfully, and that includes being a team member that can step up if an unforeseen event occurs.

As members work on their Bloom Where You Are Planted pattern quilts, keep in mind it is up to the maker to decide if the quilt will be available For Sale or Display Only. The maker will be able to indicate the disposition at the time the quilt is entered into the show.

Don’t forget there will also be a small quilt auction. So give some thought to starting a quilt for the auction.

The next 2023 Quilt Show Meeting will be held in January.  An email will be generated in early January providing date, time and location.

Nan DeChant and Cathy Day – Show Chairs

president’s Message

Hello Thumb Butte Quilters!

It’s already November and I’m excited for sweater weather!  Goodbye shorts and flip flops…I will see you sometime in June next year.

We had a great October meeting with lots of new guests and members.  I hope everyone was inspired by our speaker, Cindy Seitz-Krug.  Her presentation was very informative and her work is amazing.  I’m already giving her tomato paste can trick a try and I WILL give my invisible thread another attempt.  I have a love/hate relationship with that thread, but the message I got from her lecture was, ‘maybe it’s user error and not the thread’!  You just have to figure out how to make something work for you and don’t fight it, just play around until it’s happy.  Sounds like a life lesson as well.

We talked a lot about our quilt show, birthday raffle, company store and opportunity quilt that we do as fund (and fun) raising events throughout the year.  The majority of the guild’s funds are used to bring us these fantastic speakers and workshops at a cost you could never get at a major quilting event. We keep the cost very low to give everyone an opportunity to take the workshops and the guild usually just break even if the workshop fills up. Please consider taking advantage of learning something new by taking a workshop during the year.   It’s an inexpensive way to learn a new technique!

Our guild is always looking for new ideas and inspiration to offer the members, so if you have an idea or maybe something you did at a previous guild, I would love to hear from you.  We may not be able to incorporate them for this year, but I think it’s always fun to try new things!  After all, we don’t make the same quilt time and again….unless we are in a hurry for a gift.  Then it’s …where is that ‘Turning Twenty pattern!’

The Elks Lodge is having a toy drive for underprivileged children and our next meeting is last opportunity to donate before the Dec. 1^st deadline.  If you would like to participate, please bring an unwrapped gift for a 2-12 year old, under $20 and leave in the Christmas box in the meeting space or on the back table for them to collect when we leave.   Let’s share the love!

Have fun at the November meeting, my quilting friends!  I will be in San Diego welcoming my new granddaughter, Indy.  Kathleen Bond will be running the show in my absence!

Dawnell Muecke, President

President’s challenge

Everyone is invited to enter a quilt into the President’s Challenge “Name that Song” contest this year.  The challenge is to make a quilt based on a popular song.  You will have until May to complete and turn in.  Anything goes!  Pieced, applique, art quilt…anything you want!  We will then display them and have a contest to see who can name the most quilts (songs) and  prizes for the entries based on various categories. There is an entry form under the forms tab. 

Here is an example I came up with, can you guess the song title???  Find the Donation Station article and you will find the song that goes with this quilt.

Membership

Welcome new members Shelley Graham, Terry Purkable, Judy Peyret, and Sharon Silva.

Thank you!

Angela Smith – Chair

Programs/workshops 

President’s Message

Hello Thumb Butte Quilters!

We had a great September meeting with lots of new guests and members.  It’s so nice to see so many enthusiastic quilters that want to get involved and make new friends.  The 2022/2023 membership directories were passed out along with your guild membership card, so if you missed the meeting be sure to get yours in October.  A big shout out to Angela Smith who is the membership chair for this year.  Getting the directories organized and printed is a big job and she made it look easy!  Woot Woot!!

Our October meeting will host Cindy Seitz-Krug who will be giving a presentation on ‘Better Machine Quilting’.  Her website is quintessentialquilting.com and it’s worth taking a look at her amazing work.  I have taken many machine quilting workshops and I always come away with a new tip, trick and inspiration.  Her workshop will be the following day on Tuesday, October 11^th from 9-4.  Head over to the program and workshop tab on the website for a supply list and description of the class.  If you want to sign up, use your new directory to contact our workshop chair, Sherri Hubbs. 

Thumb Butte guilds’ upcoming ‘Bloom where you are planted’ quilt show in June seems so far away, but it’s really not! I’m already busy making cute bowl cozies for the Marketplace and planning which quilts I’m going to put in the show. It takes an entire year to plan and organize our 2 day show which is our biggest fundraiser for the year.  The money earned from the show funds speakers, workshops, the rent on our meeting place and so much more.  Julie Eastman and I co-chaired the 2021 quilt show and we had a great time!  Neither of us had ever put on a show and Julie hadn’t even been to a quilt show before.   The guild members were amazing and volunteered for everything we needed.  We worked together and all of the things we needed to do were in very detailed binders with directions.  The show was a really fun success and we loved doing it together. This year we have Nan DeChant as the chair and she is already getting everything started.  Nan is also very experienced in putting on a show like this, but she really needs a co-chair or even 2 co-chairs.  Splitting up different responsibilities makes the work more manageable and enjoyable and most of the other show jobs already have volunteers in place, so all the hard work is already done.  Take a look for a more detailed job description under the want ad section of the website and maybe you and a friend will want to volunteer as co-chair!

On a personal note, I’m expecting grandbaby #5 on Halloween I’m busy working on her quilt!

Happy Quilting my friends and I will see you at the October meeting.

Dawnell Muecke, President

WANT ADS

 All of our volunteer jobs can be done by 1 or several people.  If you have a friend, consider sharing a job.  Half the work and twice the fun!  New members are always welcome to volunteer and there will be someone who has done the job before to help you.  Just ask our membership chair, Angela Smith!  She was a member for about a month or two before she took over membership and that’s a big job! 

Job:                Co-chair or co-chairs for June 2023 quilt show

Qualifications:                Enthusiastic, easy going and willing to help                                                                           No experience necessary

Job description:              Work with the current Chair person, Nan DeChant, to organize and facilitate the June 2023 Quilt Show.  The quilt show has many job chairs to break all the show functions down and make them more manageable.  The co-chairs make sure the show has all the pieces in place before the show and is responsible for smoothing out any issues on the day of the show.  Think of this job as the circus ringleader!  You don’t have to ride the elephant…just direct him.

Help guides:                    There are VERY detailed binders for this job so you are not re-inventing the show.  Just follow what has already been done, put your own touch where you want and the individual job chairs (already in place) will do the rest!

Why co-chair:                 Every job is easier if you have a backup.  Vacation, sickness, need a hand, bounce ideas off each other and it’s just more fun.

When:                               ASAP!

How to apply:                 Use your directory and contact Nan DeChant to help!

_______________________________________________

 Job:                 Publicity chair or co-chairs for June 2023 quilt show

Qualifications:                Organized and no experience necessary

Job description:               Use the detail binder to advertise the quilt show.

Help guides:                    The job binder lists each contact to advertise the show.  Just reach out, send them the already completed information about the show and they will advertise.

Volunteer time:              This job does not involve much time.  It’s completed mostly thru email contact and a few phone calls.  Easy, peasy  but important job!

When:                              Volunteer now to get involved with the show, but most of the work won’t take place until June 2023.

How to apply:                 Use your directory and contact Nan DeChant to help!

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Job:                            TBQ Treasurer  

 Qualifications:       Accounting background; organizational skills, knowledge of Quickbooks 

Job Description:    Available upon request 

Help Guides:            Treasurer’s Notebook and Job Description 

Volunteer Time:    Approximately 7 to 10 hours per month for a knowledgeable finance person 

When: Immediately 

How to Apply: Contact Dawnell Muecke (use directory for contact information) 

______________________________________

 Recent Jobs filled:  Small quilt auction co-chair and 2024 Opportunity quilt team! 

Thank you to all of our volunteers!  Your participation is greatly appreciated and recognized by all!  

Dawnell Muecke, President

Membership

Welcome new members Shelli Leffert, Kim Keogh, and Deena Knight.

Thank you!

Angela Smith – Chair

Programs/workshops