African American Quilters Gathering

Tina Williams Brewer

2010-11-08T21:40:00.000-08:00

Art quilter Tina Williams Brewer was in town, and we had the privilege of spending time with her as she exhibited in local schools, and at the USCT Grand Review this past weekend.

June 26 Road Trip

2010-06-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

We went to the York Quilt Show. There were SO many beautiful quilts.

This guild's show gave us a glimpse as to how we could create our own show, which we've been debating for a few months now. There is a LOT of work involved, but I believe we're up for the challenge.

Afterwards, we got a bite to eat. What is a quilting gathering/outing without food?!!

What a great day. :)

May 22 gathering

2010-05-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

At the May gathering, there were 14 members present (Carol, Joann, Narda, Rosanne, Alora, Gloria, Cynthia, Evelyn, LaQuita, Cherry, Elizabeth, Bobbie, Joyce, and Laurel).

Agenda:

Blank membership cards were given to the Treasurer, who will have them ready for our next gathering.
We discussed next month's road trip to the quilt show on the York, PA fairgrounds. Afterwards, we will get something to eat.
We continued our ongoing discussion of making a quilt show in February a reality.
We agreed to participate in an event in November by creating a group sampler quilt. We will each complete a block. The colors will be "autumn"--gold, brown, orange, burgundy, forest or hunter green, and navy. Carol and Evelyn will chose four light/neutral background fabrics, for the sake of continuity and visual uniformity. The block will be 12" finished (12.5" unfinished). Bring your completed block to the July gathering. Wash your fabric first!

Block	To be Completed By
Wagon Wheel	Cherry
Bow Tie	Roseanne
Log Cabin	Saundra
Crossroads	Alora
Drunkard's Path	Narda
North Star	Evelyn
Birds in the Air	Vivian
Basket	Bobbie
Sailboat	Cynthia
Shoofly	Elizabeth
Flying Geese	Gloria
Drinking Gourd	Joann
Underground RR	Joyce
Bear Paw	Carol
Monkey Wrench	Adrienne
Simple Monkey Wrench	Laurel

We brainstormed about ways to increase our membership thru recruitment; one idea was to contact local churches.
In our educational segment, Joyce demonstrated paper piecing.
This is the month that we are to complete our log cabin block in our Underground Railroad sampler quilt. Some of us brought our completed blocks to the meeting, others brought the fabrics. The Jacob's Ladder block should be completed in June.
We had a Show and Tell of our quilts.

Kyra Hicks

2010-05-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

I got a really nice email from Kyra Hicks, noted African American quilter, author, and historian! She stopped by our blog and wished us well; isn't that wonderful?!!

She wrote a book last year about Harriet Powers and her infamous Bible Quilts. If we are interested in purchasing autographed copies from her, she sent me an order form, so let me know. In the meantime, stop by her blog, which I've linked in our sidebar to the right.

April 24 gathering

2010-04-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

We discussed a number of issues:

Saundra has been in the hospital; send a card or give her a call if you get the chance
More dues were collected
Membership cards were discussed, and will be ready by the next meeting
Hospitality (bringing food) will occur on a rotating basis; members will have two annual obligations to serve (refer to schedule)
June's meeting will be cancelled; we're taking a road trip to a quilt show!
Our group quilt is now finished; Cynthia suggested each member sign the quilt back behind the block they contributed, and she would embroider it

Joyce took the remaining blue/green blocks to make into a second quilt
The decision was made for members to create a quilt using Eleanor Burns' Underground Railroad book; each month we will work on the same block (we will all be creating our own quilts), thus enabling even our beginner members to develop basic quilting skills
Carol and Evelyn demonstrated strip piecing for rail fence and two by two blocks
We showed our quilts
We are thinking of hosting our very own quilt show next February! We certainly have enough quilts...
Members present: Carol, Bobbie, Cynthia, Cherry, Adrienne, Narda, Laurel, Lana, Sydney, Alora, Gloria, Evelyn, LaQuita, Joyce

Nashville Airport quilt exhibit

2010-04-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

If you are ever in the Nashville airport, check out this quilt exhibit!

Zuri Quilts at Nashville Airport, Spring 2010

These quilts were created by the ladies of this guild.

March 20 gathering

2010-03-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

We discussed a number of topics this afternoon:

boot camp (Evelyn will be conducting this; contact her for details)
we decided to do a Block of the Month (BOM) quilt; as we have quilters at a variety of different levels, it is perhaps wisest to do a different block every month to demonstrate the skills/techniques needed for constructing various types of blocks
we showed quilts! (see flickr)
birthdays (Cindy 1/17, Lana 4/8, Joyce 4/25, Vivian 5/18, Sydney 5/30, Adrian 7/27, Cherry 9/8, Gloria 9/29, Laurel 11/3, Joann 11/6, Alora 11/14, Evelyn all of December); we will need to get the other birthdays
Piecemakers (Middletown quilters) will be hosting an interesting speaker next Wednesday 3/24
food next month (Carol--chicken, Vernie--calico beans and greek pasta salad, Laurel--green salad, Lana/Sydney--dessert, Alora-dessert and drinks)

February 27 gathering

2010-02-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

Agenda:

· Review of last month’s decisions

· Treasurer’s report

· Hospitality planning

· Educational session

o Preparing fabric

o Quarter inch seams

o Quilting terms

o Setting the educational agenda

§ Block of the month

· Show and tell: current projects

Attendance: Alora, Joyce, Laurel, Evelyn, Narda, Adrienne, Carol, Cherry.

· The meeting was called to order at 1:30

· Evelyn shared information on quilt shops in the area with good information on quality, volume, cost and facilities

· There was a general discussion of essential tools which included: rotary cutter, self healing mat, 12’’ and 5” squares, 6” by 24” ruler, seam ripper, good quality thread (including Sulky, Gutterman, Connecting Threads), steam iron, fine straight pins, tailor chalk or pencil, quilting needles for the machine with sharp point and a good guide book.

· We conducted show and tell of antique quilts as well as contemporary quilts.

· The presentation on layering back, batting and top was deferred

· Organizational discussion

o Agreement that the primary purpose of the group was to teach and learn quilting techniques and to fellowship among interesting group of women. Among the things suggested were learning the basics, terminology and exchange of information about show and other related activities

o There was agreement that we needed to have officers but that we wanted the group to be informal without a lot of rules and by laws

o The group wanted to meet in community spaces rather than homes and agreed to try to make the Kline Village Library the primary site for our meetings.

o Dues were established at $24 per year for adults and $12 per year for person under the age of 18. Year 2010 dues will be due April 1^st.

o The following officers volunteered to serve two year terms:

§ Convener: Carol

§ Co-convener: Evelyn

§ Treasure: Joyce (Note: $ 25 was handed over to Joyce from the money collected at the November meeting and Joyce was authorized to open an account.)

§ Secretary/ Historian: Laurel

§ Hospitality: Alora

o There was agreement that our activities should evolve but some of the ideas discussed were: shop hops, guest speakers, trunk shows, making quilt to raffle for charity, and making a quilt for the library.

o The group discussed the name and decided to change the name to: African American Quilters Gathering.

· Announcements

o The next meeting will be March 20^th at the Kline Village Library from 1-4 PM.

The meeting was moved from the 27 th accommodate members who will be attending a quilt retreat that weekend

o Note of appreciation: Bobbie, Adrienne, Gloria, Evelyn and Narda provided great refreshments. Thanks so much!

Resize your pictures!

2010-01-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

There have been some questions regarding resizing pictures, and how to make them smaller (for email, blogs, photostreams, etc). Pic Resize is a free online picture resizer; it is a great tool for just such a purpose!

How to receive blog updates as email

2010-01-31T19:56:00.000-08:00

Some of our members are interested in receiving updates to the blog as emails. From what I understand, it can be accomplished in as little as four steps. There are sites that easily walk you through the process here (it uses IE 7 or Outlook 2007 or a sharing invitation email message), here (it uses Bloglet), and here (it uses Feed My Inbox). Do not panic if these terms are unfamiliar to you; the process seems to be very simple and straightforward.

January 30 gathering

2010-01-31T15:47:00.000-08:00

At our meeting today, Evelyn talked about some of the basics of quilting:

rotary cutters
cutting mats
rulers
the correct height for cutting tables
using Joann coupons at Hancock
Connecting Threads

Call for quilt entries by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi

2010-01-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

"A New Journey" by Carolyn Mazloomi

Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi has put out a call for quilt entries! The deadline for submission is July 1, 2010.

You can find out more about this on Kyra's blog, Black Threads, here.

Our first meeting: A presentation

2010-01-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Carol, who put together this PowerPoint presentation for us!

November 28 gathering

2009-11-28T13:52:00.001-08:00

For this gathering, we brought our completed 12.5" blocks, made of the fabrics given to us by Carol. We used whatever pattern we desired. We found that our challenge, regardless of the size, was ensuring that we all had 12.5" blocks. As you may well know, when you create your own quilt, you simply cut all of your blocks down to the same size, and the exact (uniform) size of the finished blocks sometimes does not matter. Well, with a group quilt project like this, size does matter.

Joyce volunteered to take the first batch home and sew them together into a quilt, and we had nine left:

Since there are still squares coming in, we will have enough for two quilts!

Some of us also brought our scrap quilts to share. And, of course, we had lots of other quilts to share. Our online photo album should be available in a couple of days.

And what quilting group's gathering would be complete without great food and great conversation?

Welcome to our blog!

2009-10-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today we held our first gathering. Carol put out a call for all of the African American quilters in the Greater Harrisburg, PA area to get together this afternoon. This has been something she has been wanting to do for awhile; I hope she is able to write about it here on the blog at some point. LaQuita had a lot to do with this, as well. We are so thankful to them both!

So, the appointed day has come and gone, and wow! It was amazing.

Carol is formally welcoming us, and sharing her vision for our group.

We are each sharing our quilting journey--how we got started, who influenced us, who taught us, and where our journey has brought us to at this point. We are sharing and listening with excitement and anticipation; finally, a group of likeminded quilting addicts!!! What you can't see here is that we have already begun planning future fabric shopping trips!

We of course had a Show and Tell; we brought our projects and shared them with the group. We will need to think about creating a photo gallery of our work at some point, but here is just one of the many quilts that was shared. The first photo is the top, and the second photo is the back! What an incredible piecing job was done on the back, even!

We will be getting together again within a month. Carol was SO generous; not only did she prepare the food (and it was delicious!), but she also provided two fat quarters to each quilter, so that we could all create a block or two to contribute to a group quilt. We are SO excited!