Club Notes - April 19, 2017

Today's meeting started a little different than usual. I didn't have announcements, but others did.

Lu Karatzas has joined a group of retired social workers, counselors and therapists to form a group called TLC (Transition Life Consultants) Services.  Members have obtained certification to practice in Florida and are offering services to Villages residents.  I sent a flyer in a separate message announcing a talk Lu is giving on May 3rd called "Where Did I Put It?"

As many of us know, Carol Riggs has been involved with ConKerr for quite a while.  This organization has changed it's name to Ryan's Case for Smiles.  For those unfamiliar, their goal is to provide cheerful pillowcases for children in Orlando area hospitals.  Carol is coordinating several efforts to raise money for fabric for pillowcases and to encourage any and all Village sewers to make pillowcases for this cause.  She brought some items to our club to sell and talked about the efforts underway.

Nita Hand tried out the scissor sharpening guy that Ellen Hein recommended and came back very impressed.  She brought a stack of his business cards to share.

Audrey Phillips talked to us about the Sewing Studio of Lady Lake, which is the new name of the shop near Spanish Springs that used to be A-White.  Her daughter Lynn is assistant manager there now and they are working on expanding their business. They are offering some special incentives.  If I got this right, they are giving a 40% off on one cut of fabric and a 40% off on one notion this week. 

Show and Tell:

Lu Karatzas showed her completed 50th anniversary string art, her chenille bunny, and a fidget muff.  (I love these creative variations!)

Brenda Severa showed her Chenille bunny and a zip-lock bag tote she made a while back.  She made a scissor cover and needle case out of plastic canvas so these items don't poke through the zip-lock bags

Bev Minnerly made fidget quilts.

Audrey Phillips brought a backpack filled with her supplies for today and a chenille bunny.

Kathy Jones made 2 dog beds and 2 fidget quilts.

Eileen DiSanto showed her chenille bunny.

 Ellen Hein made some children's pajama pants and some baby no-scratch mittens for her soon to be granddaughter.  She also made a pair of the mittens for Marti's future grandson.

Mary Nazgiewicz is also going to be a first-time grandmother soon.  She showed a baby blanket she made, and a fidget quilt she worked on with Marie Bray.

Charlotte Cecilio took her chenille piece and made a pillow instead of a bunny.

I finished the quilt that Eileen Navikas made and also made a fidget quilt.

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Despite a sprained ankle, Lu gave a great demo on how to make zip-lock bag totes. She has added some interesting flourishes, such as using clear sheet protectors in addition to the zip-lock bags to hold travel documents, favorite patterns, or any other papers you need to bring. We should see some variety of these totes coming back for future show and tell.

Next week we will make thread/scrap catcher bags.  I will send out the supply list in a couple of days.

Club Notes - April 12, 2017

A small group of 10 ladies plus 1 guest made it to our meeting this afternoon.  I hope many of the rest of you stopped in at Carol Riggs' house this afternoon.  I heard from a couple of ladies who stopped there on the way that there was a good turnout.

Those who came this afternoon concentrated on either making dryer sheet blocks, sewing triangles together, or sorting little blocks into matching sets.  We got a lot accomplished.

No photos this week either, but I am posting this note to maintain continuity.

There will be a separate email with instructions for next week's project..  See you all next week.

Club Notes, April 5, 2017

I was happy to see 22 ladies come out for our first meeting of the year back in our regular room.  We are now back on our weekly meeting schedule.

I started with a couple of announcements.

April 10th, Noon - 3PM - Craft Fair for Busy Hands, Happy Hearts, at Coconut Cove rec center.  

The proceeds benefit nursing homes in the area, assisted Living, Boggy Creek Camp, hospice, the homeless and hospitals. 

April 12th, Noon - 3PM Vendor sale at Carol Riggs' house, 3171 Southern Trace, to benefit Case for Smiles.  I will send more info on this is a separate email.

The woman who was going to take donations to MD Anderson Cancer center sent her apologies.  She has to fly to the hospital instead of driving and won't be ble to take the items.  We will find other places to donate the 4 quilts and 2 neck pillows we have.

I took the rest of the pop=tops we collected to the Villages Elementary school of Lady Lake last Friday.  There was an article in the Daily Sun saying they needed to have all donations by April 3rd.  SO now we are starting again, collecting pop tops and box tops for next year.

Show and Tell:

Lu Karatzas started us off by showing her latest fidget quilt.

Audrey Philips showed 2 bunny candy holders and a race track, all made on her embroidery machine.  The race tracks are being made by the MEQ club and will be donated to the foster children's services at Christmas. 






Since our project this week involved chenille, she also showed a wall hanging her friend Norma Shwartz made using several identical layered panels.

Brenda Severa showed a quilt she is working on.  This was her first attempt to use her embroidery machine to quilt .

Marty Rhyme shared that she is expecting her first grandson on October 1st.  She also talked a little about her recent diving trip to Fiji.

Eileen Navikas made a quilt top with her scraps and dryer sheets.  (She gave it to me to finish sandwiching and quilting.)

Ellen Hein made 4 pillowcases for the Ocala shelter and a pair of pants to match the top she showed last week, for her granddaughter-to-be.

Donna Rissman showed a cute carrot candy holder.  We agreed this can be a future project, possibly as a witches hat for Halloween.

Our newest member, Charlotte Cecilio, showed an adorable door stop she made by wrapping fabric and lace around a brick to make a little teddy bear bed.

I showed our latest group project, another quilt made from dryer sheet blocks that I finished.

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Kathy Jones led our Faux Chenille bunny project this week.  She even arranged to take the chenille fabric to a local friend's house during the meeting so they could be fluffed in a dryer.  It will be fun to see a herd of  rabbits come back in 2 weeks.

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Next week is scheduled as another charity workshop week.  Since the Case for Smiles event is scheduled on the same afternoon, we are going to run next week's meeting a little different, to give you all a chance to participate in both our meeting and the charity event if you wish.  So that no one will miss anything, we will NOT have show and tell next week.  I ask you to hold your show and tell items until the April 19th meeting.

I will bring materials for dryer sheet blocks, precut blocks for charity quilts, dog bed sleeve fabric, and a small amount of items for fidget quilts.  You can work on any of these items or just sew your own project.

Since we won't have show and tell, there won't be any set time for you to arrive or leave.  That will give you the option of stopping at the Case for Smiles charity event on your way to our club or on your way home, if you wish to support that event.  I encourage you to take a little time to support this event.  

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.