Club Notes - January 29, 2025

We had a great turnout of 24 ladies for our winter pot-luck.  There was lots of great food to choose from.   

I announced that the 2 members who attended the most meetings in 2024 were Suzette Katrishen and Mic Pickard.   I gave them each a towel with an embroidered top hanger.  Suzette is in poor health and staying in The Club, so 2 of our ladies went to visit her and delivered the gift.

 

Show and Tell: 

Lorraine Manz showed a quilt top she completed.  Lorraine will be going back to Canada so this was her last meeting until next fall.

Mic Pickard showed a Valentine house flag she made.

Audrey Phillips made 2 walker bags.

Ceal Pedersen painted the faces on several bags of stuffed animals that were made at the last few meetings.

I noted that no one had made any frogs, and since I like these, I made 2. I also made an attempt to paint their faces so I can show them at the Giving Showcase next Saturday. .

Carolyn Grasso made 3 animals that still need stuffing.

Anne Knoff showed a quilt she finished.  It was quilted by a member of Khaki who has a long arm.

Candy Dodge showed several samples of techniques she is learning. She finished the folding box we demoed a few weeks ago,

 a seat belt adjuster, 

microwave potato bags, 

a paper pieced tree, 

free motion quilting samples, 

and a paper pieced star block.

Jean Peters showed a walker bag she made with Velcro instead of ties.  We had some discussion on why adhesive Velcro is not very good for sewn projects.  In addition to not providing a permanent attachment, they will gum up the needle if you try to sew them on.

Ellen Hein made a bunch of infant hats for the Leesburg maternity ward.   There were questions on how she made these so she demonstrated the process.

Diane Saculla showed a baby quilt she made.

Bev Minnerly showed a quilt top 

and  some of the doll clothes she made for Dolls From the Heart

 

After show and tell, we reviewed the Florida trivia questions I handed out.  These were not easy, but Carolyn Grasso got the prize for answering 15 of the 25 correctly.

As our last activity of the afternoon we played several games of Bingo with a Villages life theme.

On February 1^st, we will be participating in the bi-annual Giving Showcase.  This is an event that highlights clubs in The Villages that give back to the community.  We will have a table next to Busy Hands, Happy Hearts so we can help each other as needed.  The event will be at Lake Miona rec center from 10AM-2PM.   I could use a volunteer to help out from noon to 2pm.  This is an easy job.  You only need to talk to people about our club.  No selling is involved.  If you can join me, please let me know.

Mic received a large fabric donation, so we will be sorting through that next week.  I hope to see you then.

 

Lois

Club Notes - January 22, 2025

There were 13 ladies at the meeting today.  I’m guessing many of you did not want to venture out in the cold.   I definitely had to bundle up to come out.

 

Show and Tell: 

Ceal Pedersen brought back 22 stuffed toys that she added the faces to

Donna Rissman brought a dog bed and showed a dashound quilt top she made.

Lorraine Manz made a quilt top and showed a knit blanket she made for Busy Hands.

Brenda Severa showed an orange quilt top she made.  

After show and tell, we continued working on making toys.

 

On February 1^st, we will be participating in the bi-annual Giving Showcase.  This is an event that highlights clubs in The Villages that give back to the community.  We will have a table next to Busy Hands, Happy Hearts so we can help each other as needed.  The event will be at Lake Miona rec center from 10AM-2PM.   If any of you would like to volunteer at the table for an hour or two, please let me know.  This is an easy job.  You only need to talk to people about our club.  No selling is involved.

Next week we will have our Winter pot-luck party.  Bring a dish if you can, but don’t worry if you can’t.  There is always plenty of food.   Remember to bring 25 pennies, buttons, or anything else you can use to mark your bingo cards.

 

Lois

Club Notes - January 15, 2025

We had a great afternoon today, with 24 ladies in attendance, including 1 guest and 1 new member.  The only way I can describe the activity is “a joyful noise”.  We had fun picking out toy patterns, cutting fabric, sewing and stuffing.   Ceal even brought in her paints to add the finishing touches.

Show and Tell:  (https://sewingn-more.blogspot.com/)

Bev Minnerly showed some of the doll clothes she made for Dolls From the Heart.

She also showed some zipper bags she made.

Donna Rissman made a swirling table runner in Christmas colors for a friend.

Ceal Pedersen brought back a bag full of stuffed toys that she added the faces to.  She also showed a quilt top she made for her son..

Kathryn Jeter finished her folding box from last week’s demo 

and made some placemats for the house she is renting.

Eileen DiSanto showed the Oriental doll she finished.

Brenda Severa showed her latest embossed towels 

and a quilt top she made from scraps. (This pattern will be great for a future group project.)

Diane Saculla showed a baby quilt she made.

Mary Ellen Boutin came with a stack of walker bags.

 

After show and tell, everyone got busy working on the current batch of toys.  I think we all had a good time.

 

On February 1^st, we will be participating in the bi-annual Giving Showcase.  This is an event that highlights clubs in The Villages that give back to the community.  We will have a table next to Busy Hands, Happy Hearts so we can help each other as needed.  The event will be at Lake Miona rec center from 10AM-2PM.   If any of you would like to volunteer at the table for an hour or two, please let me know.  This is an easy job.  You only need to talk to people about our club.  No selling is involved.

Next week we will continue our toy production efforts.  I hope to see you then.

January 8, 2025

Happy New Year.  After the long holiday, it was good to see everyone.  There were 19 of us. Including 2 new members, 2 guests, and several returning snowbirds.  I brought the 4.5” squares and fiberfill. Mic brought the bin of smaller fabric pieces.   Carolyn Grasso couldn’t stay for the meeting, but dropped off 2 boxes of fabrics.

 Today’s demo was on how to make a small foldable fabric box.  I also showed a larger fabric box. 

Show and Tell:  (https://sewingn-more.blogspot.com/)

Mic Pickard showed a vest she embroidered and talked about getting the special fabric at the Dollar Store.

Lorraine Manz came with 2 quilts, 

and made 2 placemats with the leftover fabrics.  

She also completed 2 toy rabbits from a panel we found in our donations.

Lisa Strahs-Lorenc showed some doll clothes she made for the Giving Dolls.

Deb Chapman showed a sampler quilt top she made.

Pat Pipa showed a pillowcase and a Chinese doll she made in an Allamanda class.

Ellen Hein is traveling so she dropped off the quilts that she finished the binding on for us to enjoy.

 

I think Anne Knoff handed in these baby quilts.

I put this together with the green 9-patch blocks that were handed in.

Last fall I asked everyone to take some of the red and blue 5" squares, along with small white squares and make snowball blocks.  This is the resulting quilt.

MaryEllen Boutin handed in this quilt top.

I added borders to panels to make 2 throw quilts.

I led a class on making dryer sheet blocks at Allamanda and this is the resulting quilt.

After show and tell, I demonstrated how to make the small foldable box. Several ladies attempted the project.  One of the lessons learned was that it is important to use a different fabric for the lining than for the outside of the box.   Otherwise the instructions can be more confusing.  I am going to take another look at the instruction and see if there are any places it can be made clearer.  I will send it out in a separate note.

 

We are due for our winter pot-luck party.  I think Jan29th will be a good date for the party.  Most members should be back from their holiday travels by then and our snowbirds should still be here. We can talk about it next week.  See you then.