Club Notes - August 25, 2021

It was good to be back with my friends this afternoon.  There were 11 of us enjoying an afternoon of sewing and friendship.  I gave a brief demo of how to make a trash bag for your car.  The instructions are attached. Note that you may opt to use longer straps or 4 straps instead of 2, depending on where you want to place your trash bag in your car.  The 2 in the pattern are fine if you are hanging it behind a headrest, but if you want to hang it from the front seat seatbelts and let it sit behind a center console, you ,ay want to use either 4 straps that tie or 2 long ones that just loop back to the bag.

Three announcements this week:   Donna Rissman's mother-in-law passed away so she will be away for a few weeks.   Eileen DiSanto will be having her knee surgery on Aug 31st.  She is staying with her sister in Rhode Island until she has recovered sufficiently to return.  Carol Riggs is going to be staying with family in Michigan until the COVID statistics in Florida ease off.

Show and Tell:

Ceal Pedersen showed a small quilt she will hang on her wall.

Carolyn Grasso  made a draw-string back pack

 

 

 

and finished the giraffe found in our donations.

 

Pat Pipa made placemats, 

 

scrap bags, and zipper bags.

 

Carole Lamb made a walker bag 

 

and pillowcases.

Ellen Hein turned in several quilt tops.

Diane Placek tried a pattern for s box style zipper bag that was supposed to be easy.  (It wasn't.)

 

 

 

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After the demo I finished 2 car trash bags and several ladies filled 4 dog beds with cut-up scraps.  We also received 3 bags of fabric that were sorted.  I found several more large pieces.  Mic brought the large (fat quarter or more) fabric back for anyone who wanted to choose pieces from and I brought 2 boxes of 4.5" squares.  We will see what comes back.

Between Allamanda and Sewing 'N More I received 7 more walker bags this week and I hope to deliver them tomorrow.

I also matched up some pillowcase sets last week and left them for Laura Tomich.  She is still undergoing medical treatment that prevent her from receiving the COVID vaccines, so she is avoiding personal contacts but still wants to help as much as she can.

Next week I will show you how to make a simple pouch to keep a clean mask handy in your purse/pocket.  Mic will bring back the large fabrics and  I can also bring any of our supplies that you request.

Hope to see you next week.

Club Notes - August 18, 2021

 At yesterday’s meeting of Sewing N More, eleven of us shared our meeting space AND Charlotte’s Birthday cake—special sweet treat---Thanks Charlotte

As usual, it was a busy and productive time as follows:

 

Show and Tell:

 

Anne Patterson brought her “in process” quilted bag project that she has started from a class given at Aaron’s Sew & Vac.  She is learning a lot and will bring it back when it is finished.

 

Audrey Phillips showed her finished Triangle Frenzy table runner from last week’s demo by Donna. 

She also finished her project bag from another of Donna’s demos 

 

 

 

 

 

and her Hexagon Hot Plate from BJ’s demo.  She had a busy week!!! 

 

Carole Lamb also had a VERY productive week having completed a walker bag, 2 fleece blankets, a pillow case and several zipper bags.

 

Liz Manzione continued her dedication to cranking out pillow cases with several very colorful and creative combinations.  She also updated us on her “in process” café curtain project.

Diane Placek used up more fabric from the latest donation making a fidget walker bag and a drawstring bag. 

 

 

 

Bev Minnerly made the fabric she took home into 3 zipper bags and a drawstring backpack.

 

Demo:

 

Ceal Pedersen was our “Demo Diva” with a totally unique and VERY fun demo of how she paints the eyes on her stuffed animals.  She not only showed us how she does it, but brought all the paints, brushes and supplies needed for each of us to try our hand (pun intended) at making them ourselves.  It was amazing to watch the adorable “bare-faced” teddy bear come to life with wide, sparkly-eyed wonder.  It was very quiet in our room after her demo as several ladies set about creating painted eyes.  Hopefully, we will see some fun results next week at Show and Tell

 

Next Week:

 

Lois will be demonstrating a Car Trash bag project.  She will send out a supply list before the meeting. 

 

I have sent a separate file of the photos to Lois so she can post them to the blog.

 

Have a great week everyone.

 

Mic Pickard

Club Notes - August 11, 2021

Although there were only 8 of us at the meeting yesterday, we had a productive time finishing projects and sharing conversations.  Having fewer people does make it easier to hear conversations and take away new ideas. 

 

I have sent a separate file of the photos to Lois so she can post them to the blog, but here are the highlights of:

 

Show and Tell:

 

Donna Rissman finished 2 quilts and an adorable cat wall hanging.  

 

 In addition, she is beginning her Halloween cycle of “output” and showed three cute themed pin cushion/bean bag items. 

 

Beverly Minnerly made a dog bed.

 

 

 

Pat Pipa made several zipper bags and a fidget walker bag. 

 

 

Carolyn Grasso made a coordinated set of placemats, mug rugs, and napkin rings for the craft sale.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Demo:

 

 Donna demonstrated several different methods of creating table runners from border print fabric.  For the Triangle Frenzy Runner, she brought in different samples of border fabric and showed us how to find the repeat pattern, mark and cut the 60% triangle shapes, and then lay it all out for assembly.  Being the fantastic teacher and creator that she is, she had already cut out several sets of triangles so that we could all see that it is easier than it looks, TRULY!!!  She also shared how she uses her chalk marker for marking the lines she is going to cut to make it easier to see the patterns and not get confused about where to cut the patterns.  Super handy tool!!!

 

Next Week:

 

Ceal Pedersen will be demonstrating how she paints the faces on the animals she makes.  Ceal will bring all her supplies for her demonstration, but would like to encourage any of you who want to paint faces on animals you’ve made, bring them with you and she will help you paint the faces.

 

For those of you who missed the meeting:

 

I have the 4 boxes of fabric that were donated last week at my house until Lois returns.  If you have not seen this donation, most all of the pieces are under a fat quarter size, but super nice quality and perfect for quilting projects or animals.  If you would like to go through the boxes, give me a call and we can set up a time for you to come by and “shop” the fabric.

 

Have a great week.

 

Mic Pickard

Club Notes - Aug. 4, 2021

We had a small group today, only  8 members,   I received a large amount of fabric yesterday, mostly fat quarters, and made this available to anyone who could find a use for it.  I also printed out several patterns for quilts using fat quarters and challenged anyone to select fabric from the stash.  Carol Thurston took me up on the challenge.  

 Last week I delivered 8 of our lap quilts to 2 DaVita Dialysis sites here in The Villages. 

I was asked how many walker bags we have delivered.  So far this year we have given Helpertunity 41 walker bags, 37 of which were given between June 19^th and July 31^st.  I have another 8 that came in yesterday and today, which will bring our today to-date to 49.  I have more kits, but since I will be away for a few weeks, I will bring them in September.

I also dropped off 4 quilts (without batting),  3 fleece blankets, 8 drawstring backpacks, 4 zipper bags, 4 stuffed dinos, and miscellaneous toiletries to the Support our Troops organization.

Show and Tell:

Pat Pipa made several zipper bags for our sale.

Mic Pickard made several matched microwave bowl sets 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and a set of “round-to-it” coasters for our sale.

 

  

 

Carole Lamb made zipper bags from some pre-quilted fabric from our donation stash,

 

 

 

 

 a pillowcase, 

 

 

 

and some walker bags.
 

 

New member Liz Manzione made a pillowcase

 and showed curtains she is working on.

 

 

Donna Rissman made 2 walker bags.

She also talked to us about the situation with the Fire Departments and ambulance services in The Villages. There is a plan to eliminate the current Villages Fire Departments and fold them all into the  Sumter County Fire System.  The current firemen, EMS, and other staff would have to reapply for jobs in the new Sumter county system, where they intend to have fewer employees, but would be spread out over all of Sumter County, rural areas as well as the more densely populated area of The Villages.  We would lose many of the personalized services that The Villages Fire Department has provided in the past.  This also involves the EMS and ambulance services that The Villages fire department has provided in the past.  If you have read about this, you will know that the company that Sumter county has contracted for ambulance services has had terrible response times, sometimes up to an hour, to get someone to the hospital.  We are an elderly community and many of us moved here with the promise of quality health care, but we can’t get that if we can’t get qualified EMS to our home and quick transport to a hospital when we need it.   I encourage you all to research this issue and write to your homeowners association and county representatives.

I got a little worked up about Donna’s news (as you can tell) and forgot that I had some things to show.  I noticed them later in the meeting.

Last week we found some fabric in the FQ box that had lots of little pieces fussy-cut out of flowers.  I remembered Donna’s show and tell from a few weeks ago and fussy cut all the full flowers from these fabric.  I then glued them onto note cards to sell.

 

I also showed 2 quilts.  I’m not sure who made the tops.  I quilted them and Donna completed the binding.  They will go into storage for the next donation opportunity.

 Lastly, I showed my fractured art pieces.  

 

These are different since I experimented with fabric that had the same design but different colors.

 

After show and tell, some of us went through the latest donations.  We filled 4 dog beds with scraps.  Several ladies looked through the “fat quarters” and discovered some had pieces cut out.  Mic took most of it home to sort so I can make appropriate cuts in the future.  I sorted another bag into potential backings, possible pillowcase bodies, smaller pieces, and home décor fabrics for walker bags or dog beds.

I also selected some squares from our 7.5” box and laid out a quilt-top design.

 

 

Next week Donna will demonstrate a table runner using border fabric.  More info will be provided in a separate email.  I will be on vacation for the next 2 weeks, but Pat Pipa and Mic Pickard will be running the meetings.  Mic took lots of supplies, so there will be plenty for you to work with.

 

Have a great week.