Club Notes - March 29, 2017

We had a great turnout of fairy dolls. Suzanne joined us briefly on her way to work, just to see them.

Yesterday was our last day in the Beach Club room at El Santiago.  As of April 5th we are back in the Hula Room on a regular weekly schedule!

I made a few announcements and probably missed a few too, so here is a full recap:

1. Pat Pipa and I attended separate sessions of the Villages Lifestyle Volunteer leaders meeting last week. Some highlights:

- There are now 2662 clubs in the Villages.  192 new ones were added in 2016.

- Senior games have now been set to occur always at the end of April.  (I guess the dates used to vary.)

- The theater room in Savannah will be closed July 12-Aug 17th so they can replace the bleachers with more comfortable seating.

- At club parties, BYOB is allowed, but if any alcohol is served, it must be by a licensed bartender.  Although the state of Florida does not require bartenders to be licensed, bartenders employed by catering firms should be.

- I asked if anything could be done to get us a stable, weekly room for next year, explaining that we had been bumped out of our room for Jan-Mar because the Boggy Bear Ladies had previously reserved it for those months.  Since there are only about 6 of them and we usually have an average of 20 show up for our meetings, they said they would look into it.

2. I delivered 15 dog beds, 1 dog toy, and a container of laundry detergent to the South Lake Animal Shelter last week.

3. Lu Karatzas has volunteered to attend the volunteer appreciation lunch in Tavares to represent our group.  I asked for a volunteer to go with her and Bev Minnerly said she would.  They will bring some fidget quilts and walker bags with them.

4. In a previous email, I mentioned a request for items for patients at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. If you are making anything from that list, it needs to be turned in to me my the April 5th meeting. (See the March 15th blog entry for a list of what items are needed.)

Show and Tell

Donna Rissman found a cute turkey kit at the quilt show in Trenton.  She completed that and a purse showcasing all the Chicago sports teams.

Then she gave a quick impromptu demo on how to make a cute placemat from border fabric.

(she promised directions to follow.)

Jane Swafford made a cute child's pillowcase.  I'll hold this for when we get enough to give to Case for Smiles.

 

Pat Pipa was a busy lady this week.  She made 2 neck pillows for the MD Anderson Cancer Center, a fidget quilt, an Easter Basket. and a couple of bags.  The last 2 items are for an upcoming Busy Hands, Happy Hearts sale.  In addition, she also finished an Allamanda quilt chapter quilt, trying her hand at free-motion quilting.  This will be donated to the Ocala Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center.

B.J. Herter brought in her faux chenille bunny to show an example of next week's project. (info on that will be sent in a separate email.)

 A friend gave Diane Placek a bunch of fabric and asked her to make a quilt out of it.  The result was a lovely star quilt.

Bev Minnerly made several walker bags.

Chris Leedy is keeping herself busy while she is recuperating from foot surgery.  She made Easter baskets and a wall hanging for her grandchildren. 

(We are going to try to get her to demo the basket for one of our future projects.)






We also liked her quilt label and the fun t-shirt she was wearing.

 Brenda Severa was up next with her latest string quilt top.  She likes to work the blocks on telephone book pages, using white strips in the center of each block to tie all the scrappy fabrics together.

Lu Karatzas has come up with another way to do a fidget quilt.  Instead of a flat quilt, she crocheted a fidget muff, with a tissue case tucked inside and other textures to touch on the outside.  Great idea!

Eileen DiSanto made an Easter wreath wall hanging at a recent quilting retreat.

I've been finishing up charity projects over the past 2 weeks.  I made a fidget quilt with a panel of an Indian woman as the base and finished a quilt from the dryer sheet blocks made by club members.



















At a recent garage sale, I picked up 4 partially completed small quilt tops.  I expanded them to the 46" square size requested by the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Three of these were the same squares on point, so I added different borders and quilting to each. (Chris Leedy helped me by putting the binding on 2 of them during our meeting.)   The 4th one had reverse applique hearts and a border on one side completed, so I used the fabric it came with to complete the first border row, then added a red and a blue border to bring it out to the requested size.  I hope to finish that this week.

Although she didn't show them, Nita Hand finished putting handles on the stack of cushion covers we received a few weeks ago.  These will be donated to the foster kids group as lightweight bags for the kids to transport their belongings in.

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Everyone was busy this afternoon working on various charity projects.  I saw fidget quilts in progress, dog bed sleeves being cut from heavy fabric to be sewn at home, dryer sheet blocks being made, and pre-cut blocks being organized into potential quilts. 
Thanks again to the ladies who helped me pack up everything and get it all into my van at the end of the meeting.  The good news is that, now that the Boggy Creek Bear ladies have finished for the year, I was able to get the shelf they were using.  I am using it to store some of the supplies we use all the time, like the dryer sheets, fabric strips, buttons, zippers and threads, as well as some fiber fill.  That's a few less boxes I need to transport each week.
Easter is coming and our next project is timed for that.  I will send out instructions for the faux chenille bunnies in a separate message.  These are easy and very cute, so come out and join us next week.