No meeting Memorial Day

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Saturday was just gorgeous here in Southwest Virginia, where I am visiting my family and doing lots of qulting! Today isa bit overcast, but that's pkay--we don't need sunshine to quilt.

I just wanted to remind everyone that we are not meeting this week since many people were going to be out of town or had other plans. Meetings will resume at normal time next week.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!

Coming right along

We had another great meeting this week, with lots of laughter and plenty of quilting.

Our charity project is in full swing, with Norma and Penny spending the meeting pre-sorting squares for those members who want to sew blocks in bulk. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of all those beautiful stacks of squares!

We do have a Facebook Group now, so for those who use Facebook, be sure to join us. (Search for Queen Bee Quilting Club and request to join us if the link didn't work for you).

Finally, tonight is the award ceremony for the Joshua's Hands Valiant Warrior Quilting project, which was selected as the Charity Project of the Year by Volunteer Loudoun. While our club is not officially connected with Joshua's Hands, it is one of our favorite charities to support, thanks to kindness of Joyce Guthrie, the founder of Joshua's Hands, in allowing us to use her property for our meetings.

Thanks to everyone who makes this club such a joy! Monday's are now my favorite day of the week!

May your bobbin always be full, and your quarter inch always be scant...

Another great meeting

We had another great meeting earlier this week. Not quite as many people as we've had at some of our meetings so far, but still a nice crowd. And of course, we were all just as talkative as usual.

Nothing too exciting to report, but at our next meeting we plan to vote for our first group "bee" activity. If you'd like to pitch in your ideas about our quarterly group activity, please make sure to try and come on April 8th. Or if you aren't available, please email us your suggestions for activities.

Now here are a few pics from show and tell for this week:

Joyce finished the twirly scarf she started at our very first meeting!

Lisa finished this gorgeous quilt top for Loudoun Hospital
as part of the Station Stitchers charity quilting group.

Another gorgeous finish by Lisa!

Norma made this gorgeous Churn Dash.

Sandra finished this beautiful patriotic quilt.
You can't see from this pic, but the words to the
Pledge of Allegiance are embroidered in the white strips!

Another beautiful project from Sandra.
It's hard to tell from the picture, but this is actually a "puff" quilt.
She plans to add some "Minky" to the back for a wonderfully soft finish.

That's all folks!

May your bobbin always be full, and your quarter inch always be scant...

Happy April

Happy April everyone! I have never really liked April Fool's Day--first I was never very fond of practical jokes, and second I don't really like the name. But, on a gloriously beautiful April 1st like this one, I can't help but be excited to welcome April in. So, Happy April Fool's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed holiday week and got to spend some time with their friends and loved ones. I wasn't able to visit my family, but I actually had a great week anyway, and thanks to the modern conveniences of easy and free long distance, I got to spend lots of time talking to my family this week--it was almost like I was there celebrating Easter with them. :-)

For those who may check the blog to see if we are meeting, tonight's meeting is on as usual. I hope you can make it. And if you have any old 45mm rotary blades you'd like to try sharpening, please bring those as well. I bought a Dritz/Omnigrid sharpener and figure it can't hurt to try. What's the worst that can happen? We end up throwing away the blades that were destined for the trash anyway?

I'd like to share a few pics from last week with you. We had several ladies bring quilts they have been working on, some of which are just about finished. Enjoy these lovely show & tell quilts!

Suzanne has been working on this quilt for a long time. She did free motion quilting on it last week.
Her first time trying "pebbles" and she did an AWESOME job!

This was Trish's first meeting with us, and she brought a nearly completed Disappearing 9-patch quilt.
She was just finishing up hand-sewing down the binding at this meeting.

 

Ann found this vintage beauty at a flea market years ago, and pulls it out
whenever she needs a break from other projects, or just wants to do some hand quilting.

This is Toast. He is upset that he doesn't have a show & tell for you this week, because
I have not done any quilting at home where he can help. But he wanted me to let you know that he
often "helps" me on quilting projects and hopes I'll bring some home for him to work on soon. ;-)

Tonight's meeting, cancelled due to...

...betcha thought I was going to say "snow", didn't ya? But nope, we can handle a bit of snow. The bigger problem for tonight is mud. That's M.U.D. As many of you know, the small activities "barn" where we meet is on a farm. I mean, this is a nice barn, hardwood floors, plumbing, heat, etc. But still, you have to drive on a gravel/dirt road to get there, and there is not any asphalt around. And thanks to the aforementioned snow, you can't really see where the gravel ends and the grass begins. So, to keep us ladies from potentially getting stuck in the mud when we try to park, we decided we'd better just call it off.

That said, I will be there during the day, teaching Joyce the secrets of free motion quilting, so if you feel brave enough to risk getting stuck in the mud, you're welcome to come on out and hang with us. But we'll probably wrap it up by around 5:30 or 6:00--if we are going to get stuck, I want it to be early enough that I have time to get unstuck before dark!

So, see you all next week. Hopefully April showers won't keep us away from the important things...QUILTING!

Wishing you a wonderful and blessed Easter with your loved ones,

Queen Bee Quilting Club


May your bobbin always be full, and your quarter inch always be scant...

Come rain, come snow...

I woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow in Western Loudoun County. But to show that quilting waits for no woman, we are planning to proceed with our regularly scheduled meeting today, Monday March 18th. 

As a reminder, we'll follow the closure schedule for Loudoun County, so if school is canceled (or evening activities called off), we'll cancel that week's meeting. Otherwise, we're on as planned.

Pics of our first meeting

You all know that quilters are sharers--hey sharing is caring, and who cares more than a quilter, who spends hours making a gift of love?--so it should come as no surprise that one of our quilty gals was nice enough to take pics from our first meeting. Thanks Joyce!

See the pile of quilts in the background?
Those are charity quilts for wounded warriors made by Joshua's Hands.

Our token knitter was kind enough to share her skills.
See? We're an all inclusive group--even if you don't quilt, we'll still love you!

Handwork and machine work are both equally welcome!

Another fabulous pic of the finished quilts.
Oh, and a lovely shot of one of our quilters. :-)

Here we have someone finishing up their very first free-motion quilted (FMQ) project.
Any guesses as to what she's making?

Our token knitter has moved on to her own projects now.
Which come to think of it, may be a crochet project. But token crocheter didn't have the same ring...

Another view of our handquilters. Can't wait to see what they're making!

Our first meeting

We had our very first meeting tonight, and what fun it was! Silly me, I forgot to take a roll, so I am not sure if I have counted everyone, but I know there were at least 11 people there. So that was an awesome turnout for our very first meeting. 

Better yet, we had a great mix of people working on hand quilting, hand piecing, machine piecing,  machine quilting, and even a couple of knitters! We had some music available in the background in case there was a lull in conversation, but with our group, that is never a problem. Honestly, one lady mentioned she had been a bit nervous that maybe we wouldn't click right away and there would be awkward pauses, but that wasn't a problem even once. 

Meeting wrap-up: There were a couple of people who were cutting in anticipation of their next big project, a few who had already done the prep-work and were assembling their tops, and one who was in the quilting stage of the project. No full "finishes" tonight, but Linda finished free-motion quilting her baby blanket, so it's just a hair's breadth away from being completed. Why don't you come on out next week and cheer her on as she aims to trim and bind it? 

I am so glad we have been able to get this group going, and hope to see many more Loudoun County quilters (and knitters, and crocheters...) come out to join us soon. 

May your bobbin always be full, and your 1/4 inch always be scant...

Welcome to the club!

I'm so excited about our new social quilting club here in Loudoun County Virginia. The Queen Bee Quilting Club! A slightly modified version of the blurb about our club is below: 

New Quilting Club Formed...

Love to quilt with other people, but haven't been able to find an evening group to quilt with?  Want to learn to quilt?  Join the club!  The Queen Bee Quilting Club, that is.

Two socially minded quilters in Loudoun County Virginia have started the Queen Bee Quilting Club, an informal quilting group where quilters of all skill levels are welcome.  The club will meet Monday nights at 7:00 PM in Waterford, VA.  There is no membership or annual fee required to join; rather attendees will be asked to donate $1/session to offset the cost of the utilities.

Our goal is to facilitate social learning among quilters of all skill levels - we don't plan to bring in outside speakers; rather we'll all learn a lot from each other just by quilting together.  Bring your own machine and/or projects - our regular sessions will be a chance for you to work on your own personal projects, whether they be machine or hand work.  We are also planning one or two special sessions per year in a more traditional "Bee" style setting...more details will follow about those events as they are finalized.

Again, there is no membership or annual fee, and no minimum number of sessions required to be part of the club.  If you have questions, and/or are interested in receiving announcements and messages about the club, please leave a comment letting us know you would like to be added to our mailing list. Please DO NOT leave your email address in the comment body; we will follow up with you at the email address you used to leave the comment. Also be sure to subscribe to our blog feed so you will be up to date about schedule changes and special events. If you have a Google account, add us to your circles to get status updates and stay on top of club happenings. 

So come on out and join the club!

May your bobbin always be full, and your 1/4 inch always be scant...