Uhuru Quilters Guild home page

Next Meeting:
September 15, 2007

  Agenda:

  10:00 a.m.
  Fons & Porter Study Group

  11:30 a.m.
  Business Meeting

  12:30 p.m.
  Refreshments

  1:00 p.m.
  Show n Tell

Note:  Please turn all cell phones to vibrate during the meeting.

Coordinator's Corner

September 2007

Many quilters look forward to autumn: ribbons to be won at county fairs and quilt shows, planning and completing holiday projects. This fall, the Exhibits Committee will be busy. Uhuru will have quilts on display simultaneously at the Martin Luther King Library, Washington, DC (September 1 – 30) and at the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo, Chantilly, VA (September 27 – 29). Our quilts and those of our sister guild, Daughters and Sons of Dorcas are beautifully displayed on the second floor. Please visit when you can. On October 6 at the Largo-Kettering Library, Uhuru members will be presenting a trunk show in conjunction with a book talk by Rosemary Reed Miller, author of Threads of Time. The address of the library is 9601 Capital Lane, Largo, MD 20774 (301-336-4044).

The 2008 Raffle Quilt committee has purchased the fabrics for the top, and kits will be distributed soon. Ticket sales for the 2007 raffle quilt, “Uhuru Beauty,” are steady. My community quilt is a Work in Progress (WIP) and I hope yours is too. Our goal is 100% participation. Remember that New Year’s Resolution? I hope you have been making progress toward actualizing it also.

For the September business meeting, committee chairs please bring any proposals for expenditures as well as receipts. It is time to do a financial reconciliation. As this year comes to a close, I want to thank those members who have assumed leadership roles, ensuring that Uhuru remained a viable organization. I hope some of you will begin thinking about taking a more active role in Uhuru. Let Sandra Ealy, Tammie Morrow, or me know if you are interested in serving in some capacity.

Sewfully,
Carol

Don't it feel good to be a quiltah...

Fons & Porter Study Group by Carol Williams

This year our workshops will be formatted as study groups. One group will mainly focus on learning the skills featured in Quilters Complete Guide by Marianne Fons and Liz Porter in order to improve our piecing and appliqué techniques. We will be following the skills-based curriculum. Feel free to join in at any time.

At the September meeting Elsie Houston will lead the session on needle turn appliqué in order to complete the Hawaiian Breadfruit block. In the Guide (revised edition) the pages for the Hawaiian Breadfruit block are 172 – 173. The pattern is on page 194.

You will need:

• 16 – 17” square of background fabric
• 15 – 16” square of fabric for the appliqué
• 7” square of freezer paper
• Thread to match the appliqué fabric
• Hand sewing needles
• Straight pins or bull dog clips
• Basic Sewing Kit [hand sewing needles, pins, thread(s) to match and/or neutral, scissors and/or thread snips, seam ripper, rotary cutter and small mat, ruler, pins, glue stick, pencil, tweezers, thimble]

There is probably some neat, handy gadget that I have forgotten. What is listed here is enough to get us started. Bring your questions and helpful hints; they are for the good of all. Volunteer teachers and guides are needed for upcoming sessions. Each one teach one.

Note: We did discover a supply of the pattern book, Americana Sampler (which is no longer in print) through a bookseller on Amazon.com. When last I checked, the price was less than $10.00 for both the book and shipping.

The Charm Exchange Cornelia Carter-Sykes, Chair

The September charm squares fabric will be Holiday Fabric; 13 people have signed up: Nadine Mills, Mia B, Myra S, Evelyn Holland, CC Flowe, Cynthia York, Gloria Thomas, Lisa Lewis, Tammie Morrow, Jackie Stafford, Cynthia Wilson, Shirley Hodge, and Cornelia Carter-Sykes.

To see the complete 2007 Charm Square schedule, as well as a description of each month's selection, visit the Charm Squares page.

Cut 6-1/2” (six-and-one-half-inch) squares of 100% pre-washed cotton (please make sure that the size and quality of your squares are what you yourself would like to receive). Please remember to cut off the selvedges before you cut your squares. Place squares in a baggie with your name on it, and put it in the "Charm Squares" basket.

If you have any questions, please e-mail or telephone Cornelia. If you have signed up and then are unable to come to the meeting, please mail squares or have them delivered to the meeting. If the number of exchanges is small enough, charm squares will be sorted and distributed before the end of the meeting.

Birthday/Hospitality The Hospitality Quintuplets: "CC" Flowe, Dawn Felix, Jocelyn Herbert, Pat Johnson, Deb Sanger

The Hospitality Committee would like to offer light refreshments, i.e., beverage, fruit, cookies. Any member is invited to bring items to share. When the refreshment period begins, please put away all quilts and materials. This will prevent any damage to your valuable items. Upon completion of the refreshment period, please dispose of unfinished food and drinks before we open Show N Tell or continue a workshop. 

When you bring food, please assist in the cleanup after refreshments have been served. We want to ensure that the room is back to its original order before leaving the Center. Thanks! 

A Very Happy Birthday to Elsie Houston (2nd); Sandra Duncan (4th); Janice Reece (12th); Becky Griffin (17th); Pansy Lovelace (17th); Tammie Morrow (18th); Sheryl Smith (21st); Evelyn Holland (29th); and Lou Nell Badgett (30th)

Sew Help Me. . .
Tips to boost your creativity

Digital design help for your quilts

Here's a quilt layout tip from Deb Sanger; I hope I remember what she said!

When you want to experiment with different layouts on your design wall, use your digital camera to take a picture of each layout. Then, you can either look at the pictures on your camera, or download the pictures to your computer, or print out copies to look at side by side. If it's a real challenge and you have enough time, put them away for awhile and come back later and look at them again. This is one way to capture and use your best ideas!

A word about hanging sleeves

IMHO, every quilt should probably have a sleeve attached, whether it's made for a show or not; sooner or later you might decide to show it and you'll have to make a sleeve anyway. So ... to make life easier, just go ahead and make a sleeve for all your quilts in the first place.

When I first started quilting, I would find instructions that said something like "cut a 6-1/2 inch piece of fabric by the width of your quilt, yadda yadda yadda..." Well, this finishes off at a 3-inch sleeve, which is just too small. Most galleries and shows today are requesting sleeves to be at least 5" finished, which means cutting your fabric 10-1/2 - 12 inches deep.

Here are some instructions for hanging sleeves:
http://quilting.about.com/od/decoratingwithquilts/ss/quilt_sleeve.htm

http://www.zeffiesquilts.com/HangingSleeve.htm

http://marthaborders.com/lesson/quiltsleeve.html

Community Service Quilts Felicia Few and Patricia King

Our Community Service Quilts will be going to St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home, located at 4901 Eastern Avenue, Hyattsville, MD. They are looking forward to receiving our quilts. St. Ann’s currently operates three residential programs (Residential Children’s Program, Teen Mother-Baby program and Faith House) and a community day care center. If you would like to read more about the services St. Ann’s provides, please see their web site at http://www.stanns.org.

The Uhuru Community Service Quilt Committee is looking for 100% cooperation of Uhuru members to supply at least one infant/child’s quilt each for this community service. We are looking for bright/colorful quilts, fun quilts, something a baby or young child will love to snuggle up with this winter, something that they can drag around with them. Let your imagination go wild, don’t let yourself be limited to ANY OLD THING JUST TO TURN IN A QUILT. Uhuru has the best quilters I know, and we can do professional work.

Because these are community service quilts, we should all do our best to give something worth loving, just like you would make for your own child or grandchild. We are accepting cheater quilts, hand made pieced quilts, or already made quilts. But again, I must stress that they should be colorful and with a child/infant theme.

Community Service Quilt Day will be at our October meeting. This is when you will have the time to finish up your quilts, not start them. They can be turned in on that day if you have finished them, but are not due until the November meeting. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU WASH YOUR FABRICS. If you are turning in quilts that you have already made, you should at least run them through the washer and dryer to make sure they hold up. Some of these quilts will be given to infants.

Happy Quilting to all

Just Sew You Know...

How would you like your "leftovers" handled???

How do you handle your fabric and projects? If you no longer “quilt with earthly threads,” will those you leave behind know what you intended to do with UFO’s or WIP’s? Anyone who has to sort out your sewing room would appreciate a little foresight on your part...

Label your projects and store all the pieces in a tote or tub or some other container, along with a description (or sketch or photo, if available) of the project and what you intend to do with it. Keep projects in separate boxes with notations and patterns. If there's something you would like to be saved for your children, grandchildren, friends, or others, leave instructions so they will be sure to get it.

If you have a substantial stash (*cough), who would you like it to go to? Perhaps it can be given to your guild for auction, to be used in charity projects or raffle quilts, or donated elsewhere. Keeping your sewing room as organized as possible not only helps your creative process, but it will make it easier to sort out later.

2007 Block of the Month - "Twelve Days Of Christmas" Renea Bailey, Chair

View the lyrics of "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" by clicking the link at the left.

Web sites and books on Applique:
http://www.quilt.com/HowTo/AppliqueHowToPage.html
http://quilting.about.com/od/appliqutechniques/Learn_How_to_Applique.htm
http://www.roserushbrooke.com/how-to-applique-1.html
http://www.quilterscache.com/StartQuiltingPages/startquiltingfour.html
“The Easy Art of Applique: Techniques for Hand, Machine, and Fusible Applique” by Mimi Dietrich & Rox Eppler
“Hand Applique with Alex Anderson”
“The New Applique Sampler: Learn to Applique the Piece O’Cake Way” by Becky Goldsmith, Linda Jenkins