Dear Quilters,
What a great start to our 40th Anniversary year! I was so inspired after the last meeting, that I cut out fabric for 2 new quilts! I love our mini quilt shows every month!
We have busy months ahead. This month, February 11&12, was the Sew Bee It. A wonderful time was had by all! March is our Community Giving Sew Day, March 18th. There will be lots of kids quilts and pillowcases kits available. This will be another fun event. April is the day we always are excited about – Mall in the Hall! April 14th will be drop off day and the sale will be Saturday April 15th. Lots of fun to look forward to. Mark your calendars!
Remember that our next meeting will be March 28th at 1:00 and 6:30. Hope to see you there!
– Mary Franck, 2023 DMAQG President
NEW GUILD APPAREL ORDER!
This year marks our 40th Anniversary! So amazing! To celebrate this Ruby occasion, we offer a red, long sleeved, v-neck t-shirt and a charcoal zipper front jacket. These both have our logo on them. The shirts are $20.00 and the jackets are $35.00. These will be available in all sizes to be seen & tried on at the February meetings. Deadline to order is the February Meeting; available for pickup in March.
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Your DMAQG
Calendar
February 21 Newcomers
February 28 Guild Meetings 1 & 6:30
March 18 Community Charity Sew-In
March 21 Newcomers
March 28 Guild Meetings 1 & 6:30
April 15 Mall in the Hall
April 27-30 Spring Retreat in Newton
See details about events at
dmaqg.org
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Newcomers
At the next Newcomers Meeting we will be talking about the techniques and creativity of making bags. Our speaker will be Karen Macon who is well known for the beautiful bags she makes. She will share some tips for making bags and have a great show-and-tell. Jean Bowden, our 2023 Program Chair, will also join us and speak about the responsibilities of the board position of Program Chair-Elect / Program Chair. She will have information about the upcoming programs and workshops.
Show-and-Tell will be held at each meeting, so plan to bring your projects (finished or unfinished) to share. This would be a great time to bring any bags you have made to share with the group.
Our next Newcomers meeting is:
Tuesday, February 21, 6:30 pm
West Des Moines Senior Center
136 6th Street, West Des Moines, IA 50265
Everyone is welcome!
Donita Fredricks – DMAQG Vice President
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February 2023 Programs
Our February guest is Ilene Bartos. As a student, Ilene found that art classes were her favorite and has turned that love into a business. She now spends her days working on new designs for her pattern line. Quilting combines her passion for color with her love of fabric and gives her infinite possibilities for creative expression.
She will be presenting two different programs on February 28th. The 1 o’clock program includes a trunk show about her quilting journey when she learned traditional quilting that has evolved into art quilts and pattern design. The 6:30 program is titled, Borders, Sashings and More. This program also features a trunk show with discussion on how to add interest to your blocks by your choice of borders and sashing. Come prepared to take home some ideas for your next quilt or bring finished blocks to discuss alternate sashing or borders.
Ilene’s March 1st workshop is Cracked Boxes. She refers to this class as “Art Quilting on Training Wheels.” It is applicable for all skill levels and focuses on choosing color combinations and easy sewing techniques. Beautiful hand-dyed fabric kits will be available for purchase.
Please visit our website with the buttons below to see the full 2023 program listings. You can also visit the speakers' websites to get to know them and what they will be teaching.
Questions may be directed to Jean Bowden at 515-778-3515 or jm.bowden75@gmail.com
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Special Interest Groups
We are in the process of collecting information about special interest groups that meet regularly and are open to anyone who would like to attend. We would like to post these groups to our website so that our members can connect with a smaller group with similar interests. If you know of such a group and would like it included on our website, please contact me at the meetings or email me at larryfredricks@gmail.com.
At our last guild meeting, Karen Macon expressed interest in starting a group focused on bags and totes. An organizational meeting for this group will be held Saturday, March 4 at 1 pm in Room A at the Urbandale Public Library. If you are interested in all things related to bags and totes, please come.
Donita Fredricks, DMAQG Vice President |
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Remember, your dues need to be paid by the end of February in order to be included in the 2023 directory. They are $40 for the year. You can pay by:
- Bringing a check to the February meeting, on the 28th
- Mail a check to DMAQG, PO Box 71709, Clive, IA 50325
- Or, click the link below and pay via PayPal
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL ONLINE
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Spring Retreat April 27-30
Our spring retreat is April 27-30th. New this year is a daily rate if you’d like to try it for a day and see if you like it. We have a capacity for 42 for overnight retreaters and up to 5 daily retreaters. More details on the sign up form. Please print the form and bring it to a meeting with your check or mail it in.
Registrations are filling nicely. Get yours in soon to save your spot!
– Nan Earll, Retreat Coordinator
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Volunteer Quilters Needed!
We are in need of volunteer quilters (long-arm or home-machine) to help finish our collection of quilt tops and meet our goals for Community Giving. It is a big job, but many hands and needles will lighten the load.
If you are able to quilt a few “bundles” for us over the next couple of months, please reach out to Carol Hendrick at hendrickca@mchsi.com, Karen Wignall at Karen.wignall2@gmailcom, or contact us through the Guild web page.
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Community Giving / Education Outreach
Mark your calendar for Saturday, March 18th for National Quilting Day, we’ve reserved the Fellowship Hall at the church for a Community Charity Sew-In! We will have kits for making Kids Quilts and pillowcases for you to sew. Bring your sewing machine if you can — sergers are especially welcome for pillowcases. We will also need help making more kits for Kids Quilts. We’ll be there from 9 AM until 4 PM. Join us anytime that day and stay as long as you can. Hope you can be there!
Homespun Challenge: we have two kits left for this challenge! Finish a twin size quilt from the fabric provided before the August meeting We will display these warm cozy quilts in our Community Giving booth at the Quilt Show in September, then donate them to a local agency that supplies bedding for kids in need.
At the February Guild Meetings, we will hand out bundles for quilting, binding and making Kids Quilts. Please stop by and see us if you can help. We will also take your donations of finished quilts, placemats, pillowcases, quilt tops and fabric.
Thank you again for helping us reach out to those in need of our donations within our community.
– Carol Hendrick, Karen Wignall, Sharon Meisenheimer and Jill Reber
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DMAQG By-Laws Changes
Proposed changes to the DMAQG Bylaws were approved at the February 6, 2023, Board meeting. According to our Bylaws, membership shall be notified one month prior on any proposed change to these by-laws. The Board also approved changes to the standing rules, which do not have to be presented to the members before taking affect.
The proposed changes to the Bylaws and the approved changes to the standing rules can be found in this document and once finalized, will be stored on our website. If you have any comments regarding these changes, please send them to: bethfreeman@dmaqg.org by March 15. The Board will finalize the Bylaw changes at the April 3rd Board meeting.
– Beth Freeman, Recording Secretary |
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Quilt Show Update
The Des Moines Area Quilt will be held September 21, 22 and 23 of 2023. The show will be held in the 4-H building at the Iowa State Fair grounds. Our theme for the 2023 Quilt Show: Quilting in the Key of Life.
We have several special quilt exhibits planned. If you would like to participate in any of the special exhibits, please contact the contact person. More information will become available in upcoming newsletters and at the monthly meetings.
Quilting in the Key of Life Exhibit
Quilts with a music theme. The quilts can be any size or of any age.
Red and White Ruby Anniversary Quilt Exhibit
This special exhibit for the DMAQG 2023 quilt show will be for treasured (antique, vintage) and new red and white quilts. See the following for criteria to be used for this exhibit:
- All quilts will be red and white.Cream and beige are acceptable background colors as well.
- All quilts will need to have a hanging sleeve attached to the back of the quilt.
- All quilts will be entered online for the quilt show.
- All quilts will be juried into the exhibit due to space considerations.
- Quilts eligible for this exhibit will have a perimeter greater than 80 inches.
Contact Beth Freeman, befree1954@hotmail.com
English Paper Piecing (EPP) Exhibit with demo
If you have an English Paper Piecing quilt you would like displayed in the exhibit, please contact, Sharon Meisenheimer, rmeis@aol.com or Mary Jane Reelitz, mjreelitz@gmail.com
Quilt Turning
This Year’s quilt turning will be “Our Quilts' Stories”. The stories as told by your quilt. I think this will be a fun and interesting presentation. If you have a quilt with an interesting story please contact Susan Callison, susancallison7@gmail.com.
Little Quilts
We had over 140 items in the Little Quilts Silent Auction last year at the show and while we are not anticipating that many this year, we could be persuaded to hang that many again! There’s plenty of time, so please do make one for us. Contact: Sherri Street, obvslystreetcar@gmail.com
More quilt show news is being planned and will be announced soon.
– Lisa Zbylicki and Julie Hanel, 2023 Quilt Show Co-chairs |
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Quilt Show Judging
We hope all our guild members are looking ahead to our 40th Anniversary DMAQG Quilt Show this September and will be entering their quilts in this years’ show. We also hope you will enter your quilts to be judged. As last year’s show judge, Kate Eelkema, NACQJ, has said, “As a functional art form, judge’s look at the design and workmanship. The quilt should be able to hold up to its purpose, whether it’s for a bed or wall”. Kate also says, “When judges comment on a quilt, they acknowledge achievements and improvement opportunities not everything noticed.” We can all learn from comments the judge makes about our quilts.
In the coming months, our committee will be sharing more about judging in this newsletter and at guild meetings.
– Mary Shotwell and Marilyn Dillivan, 2023 Judging Committee Co-Chairs
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Vintage Singer Sewing Day
Saturday April 1, 2023 from 9am to 5 pm
Polk City Iowa 50226
Our new small group, that is an off shoot of the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild, will meet again in April. We are open to members and non-members of DMAQG. We plan to gather like-minded Vintage Singer Sewing machine enthusiasts for a day of fellowship and fun. Sewing, swapping of ideas and selling of items related to vintage machines. If this sounds like fun to you, please click the button below for the registration form. Attendance will be limited so quick registration is a must!
For more information, please call Jill Reber 515/210-9930 or email mpquilt@aol.com
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Did you know that the DMAQG Library contains hundreds of books related to quilting, including how-to, patterns, and history, as well as many quilting themed novels? There is a good selection of classic titles and books written by our very own members. The Library is open prior to both the afternoon and evening meetings. Make sure to stop by and check out what we have to offer. Books check out for one month and are due back at the next meeting. A committee has been working to update the library catalog and we plan to have a new online catalog available for your use later this year.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by and visited the library before the January meetings. We hope you found books which will inform and inspire you.
Each month, in the newsletter, we will inform you about books in our library related to that month’s program so you can do some additional reading about that month’s topic. In January, Rebecca Lowe presented about art quilting, marbling fabric and boro and sashiko. Here are some books available in the DMAQG Library related to those topics.
- The Beginner’s Guild to Art Quilts, Banar
- Art Quilt Workbook, Jane Davila
- Fabric Painting and Dying
- Fabric Dyer’s Dictionary, Linda Johansen
- The Painted Quilt, Linda Kemshall
- Dyes and Paints, Elin Noble
- The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook, Susan Briscoe
- Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match, Susan Briscoe
Ilene Bartos will be our February speaker and workshop presenter. Ilene has been quilting and writing books about quilting for many years. Two of Ilene's books, Maple Leaf Quilts and Spectacular Rectangles, can be found in our library. Stop by the library and see more of Ilene’s great designs.
Do you have quilting magazines that you no longer need? Drop them off at the library before the meeting. Want some different quilting magazines to look at? Come by and help yourself to magazines donated by your fellow quilters.
Come check us out!
– Debra Hull and Martha Henrichs, Librarians
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Guild Meetings are the Fourth Tuesday of the Month January – October.
See email Newsletter for other activities throughout the year.
DMAQG annual dues are $40 year. Meeting guest fee is $10.
All meetings and workshops will be held at the West Des Moines Christian Church at 4501 Mills Civic Parkway in West Des Moines. To get there from Interstate 35, exit at Mills Civic Parkway, exit 70. Turn east onto Mills Civic Parkway and drive about 0.9 mile. The church is on the north side of Mills Civic Parkway. Meetings are in the Sanctuary in Building 2 and workshops are in Building 3.
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