   In this Valentine month we had a sweetheart of a February meeting! It was so great to see everyone after such a long time. With 31 in attendance, which included 5 visitors, we basked in the warmth of quilty goodness! Now on to the minutes. I apologize in advance for how lengthy this is! We covered a LOT on Thursday! The meeting opened greeting the visitors and each member individually. It was so fun to see and hear from everybody..........then it was on to business. Lynn Carson Harris: The Northern Lights Guild has invited us to partner with them in bringing Lynn Carson Harris to Duluth the weekend of October 5th for a trunk show and two days of teaching. We have sent a poll to all members asking their preferences in what classes they would like to see offered. Project Pouch: There will be a Project Pouch sewing day on Saturday, March 3rd at Harrison Community Center, 3002 W 3rd Street. We haven't yet set a start time so watch you inbox and the member's only Facebook page for an announcement. Twelve inch zippers in a variety of colors will be available for use. Reminder! This is a year long project and at the end of the year we'll have a drawing with a FABULOUS prize for those who participated. To earn entries, a pouch only donation = 1 ticket, a toiletries only donation = 1 ticket, a filled pouch donation = 2 tickets. Bring your pouches to meetings as you complete them. We'll keep track of earned tickets through out the year. As we have filled pouches we'll bring them to the Women's Shelter. You may use any pouch pattern you like. If you want to use the Open Wide pouch, the tutorial pdf can be accessed by clicking on the link below. The zippers that were donated fit the Medium Open Wide Pouch. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sdME8iHc1_nAJ0ClDe3up-tL1HnOWDlg?usp=sharing Riley Blake Challenge: We will have an LSMQG Riley Blake challenge as we have had the past two years. Guidelines for the challenge are the same as the guidelines for the National guild challenge with the exception that the solids you add to the Riley Blake challenge fabrics do not have to be Riley Blake solids. We'll have our Riley Blake challenges show and tell at the June meeting. Those who bring a completed challenge item to share will be entered into a special drawing. New Meeting Location: It was announced that beginning with the March meeting we will move to Harrison Community Center, 3002 W 3rd Street, for our monthly meetings. Parking is available on both sides of 3rd Street and there is a parking lot on the west side of the park/baseball fields. We greatly appreciate the generosity that Karen McTavish has shown in sharing her studio space with us. She has been such a supporter of the guild and supporter of many within the guild. Karen, you have no idea how much your support has meant to us! 2018 Quilt a Long/Block of the Month: Alane shared with us her beautiful quilt design that will be our guild 2018 quilt a long. Directions for the first block were shared, along with a coloring sheet that can be used to plan out fabric choices and color placement. Alane's pattern is designed to introduce a variety of blocks and construction techniques. It is also an opportunity to play with color as a design element. The quilt finishes 70" by 70". A PDF of the full design, the coloring sheet and instructions for the first block can be accessed by clicking on the link below. Bring the first completed block to the April meeting so we can see everyone's different versions and visions! https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zzAK9fvgAOFlatYotrUq0JaxIwW06msf Then Alane conducted a session about organizing your stash and scraps. She shared her technique for organizing by color, cutting up scraps into usable sizes and folding fabric. She also shared with us many links she found helpful in researching the topic of how to organize your stash and sewing space. Below are the links to the websites that she shared with us. Color Organization: The Art of Choosing by Jeni Baker from her blog In Color Order http://www.incolororder.com/p/art-of-choosing.html Fabric Folding Tutorials: Folding Tutorial on YouTube and I Always Pick the Thimble Scrap Management: Lori Holt from Bee in My Bonnet and Pat Sloan's Scrap Busting Plan Sewing Room Organization Ideas: https://www.pinterest.com/alane_davis/craft-room-love/ In our April Meeting we will continue discussing color and choosing fabrics and go over in more detail the tutorial by Jeni Baker, 'The Art of Choosing' Quilter of the Month: Heidi shared with us three beautiful quilts she recently finished and shared with us a bit of her recent quilty journey and inspiration. It was so great to see her quilts and learn more about her. If you would like to be featured during a month this year, please sign up during our next meeting. Joan will be our Quilter of the Month for March. Thank you Joan! Snacks: Snacks were provided by Ruthann. If you can bring a snack to March's meeting please email lakesuperiormqg@gmail.com to let us know! Show and Tell: We had a BIG show and tell on Thursday! Well, I think that's it! It was a packed night! Don't forget......March's meeting will be at Harrison Community Center, 3002 W 3rd Street. LSMQG Leadership Team 
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 Wow! Where has January gone! Hope you all made good use of the cold weather to do some hot sewing and quilting!
I don’t know about you, but not having a January meeting really left an inspiration gap in my month. Here is what we’ll be doing in the February meeting on Thursday, February 8th. Scrap and Stash Management: Alane will be sharing with us her tips as well as tips gleaned from the web on how to organize and store your scraps and stash. 2018 Quilt a Long: Alane has designed a yearlong quilt-a-long for us that will help build your piecing skills. The full pattern and first block of the series will be revealed in the February meeting. Project Pouch: Wondering what ‘Project Pouch’ is all about? You should have an email in your inbox that explains our yearlong service project. If you missed the email, the information is also posted on our blog. You can see that here: https://www.lakesuperiormqg.com/home/project-pouch We’ll discuss it more in our meeting and answer any questions you may have. Quilter of the Month: Our quilter of the month for January is Heidi. We’ll see some of her quilty goodness in our February meeting. We’ll also have a sign up available so you can sign up for a month to be featured! Guild News: We met as a leadership team in early January. We'd like to share with you some plans for 2018. Show and Tell: In our survey many of you mentioned this is your favorite part of the meeting! We want to see what you have been working on! Whether it is a work in progress or a completed project we want to see it! We love being inspired by everyone’s talents! Can’t wait to see everyone on Thursday, February 8th at Karen McTavish’s Quilt Shop, 1831 East 8th Street. The Leadership Team LSMQG 😊 p.s. For those on the email distribution list who have not yet paid dues for 2018, we'll be revising the distribution list after the February meeting. You can still keep up with all the events, photos and activities via our web page http://www.lakesuperiormqg.com and don't forget, you can access our Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest pages all from our web page! As a way to get to know our fellow LSMQG members we plan to feature a different quilter each month. Let one of the leadership team know if you would like to be featured! HEIDI: I never saw myself becoming a quilter. I have always enjoyed sewing “occasionally" in the beginning. Making simple baby blankets and things around the house. Around 2008, I discovered a tote bag pattern and fell in love. I became a bag/purse making maniac. Searching for cute patterns led me into the blogging world. It was there that I discovered all sorts of beautiful quilts. Nothing like my grandma made. A majority of the quilts that I made were given away to babies and family in the beginning. It's just been in the last few years that I've tried to focus on making quilts for me and my family. Being a part of the LSMQG has not only been a huge inspiration to my creative journey, but has helped me grow as a quilter. Teaching me to better identify what IS a modern quilt. I've also learned that in the scale of traditional vs modern, I definitely do not sit on the super modern side but rather somewhere in the middle. I love modern fabrics and quilts that push the boundaries. But I also love the look of a simple patchwork quilt tied with yarn. Mostly because they remind me of my grandma. In the past few years I've made a conscious effort to avoid most online swaps and groups. This was all in my desire to sew for me and invest in making things that I love. I've started 2018 with my new motto "The best way to get things done is to begin" and it's working!! I've already made and finished 4 quilts this year. Yay me!! Thank you, Heidi, for letting us get to know you better and for sharing photos of your beautiful quilts!
 In our 2017 survey it was overwhelmingly stated that our generous members want to do Community/Charity sewing, you want to make smaller items, and you want the donations to support women. We have the perfect opportunity!
We are officially opening our new charity sewing program: PROJECT POUCH! Project Pouch is an opportunity to provide pouches sewn by our members and filled with toiletries to a local women’s shelter. We hope you agree that this is a very worthy cause and something that everyone can participate in! Here’s the nitty gritty: 1. Project Pouch is a year long program so you’ve got plenty of time to get involved :) 2. The shelter will accept filled and unfilled pouches, but we think filled pouches are the best way to show our intent! 3. Toiletries can be full size or travel size. 4. Some toiletry suggestions: Shampoo, Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Hair brush, Deodorant, Soap, Razor, or anything you think you’d want if you were in the recipient’s shoes! 5. You can use any pouch pattern you like, but Anna Graham from Noodlehead Design has graciously given her permission to use her “Open Wide Pouch” Pattern for this program. 6. We are excited that the popular Etsy shop 'Zipit' donated 12” zippers for Project Pouch which will be distributed at LSMQG meetings. The picture of the colorful display of zippers on this post - those are the donated zippers! Aren’t they amazing?! Thank you so much Zipit for your generous donation! 7. To kick Project Pouch off with a bang we will be holding a Pouch Party Sew-In in February or March, date TBD! ***As an extra incentive we will be holding a drawing at the end of the year for those who have participated. The more you donate, the more chances you have of winning! Here’s how: •One empty pouch gets 1 ticket in the drawing. •One donation of toiletries (enough to fill a pouch) will get you one ticket in the drawing. •One sewn and filled pouch will get you two tickets in the drawing. We hope that you are as excited as we are to get Project Pouch rolling! Get ready, get set, SEW! -Your Lake Superior MQG Leadership Team  Tonight’s meeting is cancelled due to weather and road conditions. Consider it a freebie night to stay home and sew something amazing to bring to next month’s meeting!
 Happy New Year! Can you believe it's 2018? To start off the year we have an exciting meeting planned. See below.....
Stash and Scrap Management Do you look at your stash and wonder, 'whatIS in there?' or say to yourself, 'I KNOW that fabric is somewhere in my stash!?!'. Is your scrap bin over flowing? Are your scraps taking over your sewing area? Well, good news! Alane will be sharing with us tips for organizing our stash and scraps into a more manageable conglomeration of quilty goodness! Quilty/Sewing New Years Resolutions As we all know, the New Year is a time for setting goals, making resolutions, etc.... Come prepared with your goals and resolutions for your quilting or sewing in 2018. We'll play a game to share them with each other. For those who desire a higher level of commitment, we will have a 'time capsule' where you can write down your goals. In December well review them and see how everyone did. 2018 Quilt a Long Alane has created a fantastic quilt pattern for our 2018 QAL. Want more details? Come to the meeting :-) Guild Business Survey Result ( We'll share a bit of the survey results over the course of several meetings.) Quilter of the Month 2018 Sign Ups MQG updates Then of course there is Show and Tell! Can't wait to see what has been keeping your fingers warm these cold days! See you Thursday, January 11th, from 6:00 to 8:00, at Karen McTavish's Quilt Studio, 1831 E 8th Street. A guild highlight for this past Fall was a class with Jamie Swanson where we made her Luminary Quilt pattern. It was a day of sewing, chopping up what we had just sewn and putting it back together again to create an explosion of color! Be sure to check on #luminaryquilt on Instagram to see more of these beautiful quilts! Thank you , Jamie, for a great day sewing your beautiful design. And thank you to the participants for letting me use your photos!   Happy Holidays to all! We had a wonderful Holiday Party on Thursday, December 14th at Harrison Community Center. The meeting started with a scrumptious dinner with lasagna entrees graciously provided by Denise and Rosemary . A full complement of hors d’oeuvres, salads, breads and desserts rounded out our menu. Thanks to all who brought something to share! After dinner we had a Saran Wrap Ball Christmas Game that challenged our speed, dexterity and ability to roll doubles. Thank you Claudia for wrapping up all the goodies and making our evening fun! Thank you Robin for contributing the dice for our game! We did have a bit of business to conduct. A reminder was made regarding 2018 membership renewals. If you haven’t yet renewed your membership you can do so via this link (scroll to bottom of page): http://www.lakesuperiormqg.com/membership.html It was announced that a second email would be sent providing the link to the 2017 membership survey. Also, the link would be posted on the Member’s Only Facebook page. Cheryl announced a quilt raffle is being held by Karen McTavish’s Quilt Studio to benefit to First Witness Child Advocacy Center. The quilt being raffled is Scott’s ‘Rey and BB-8’ quilt which was quilted by Frank Palmer. Tickets can be purchased at McTavish Quilting Studio. More information can be found here: http://www.firstwitness.org/quilt-raffle-rey-bb-8/ Then our elves passed out the Fabric Challenge Swap presents for opening. I think everyone must have been very, very good this year because their ‘Santa’ made them some great ‘little gifts’! The link to see all the handmade goodness is below. Thank you Sue for organizing the swap. And of course there was Show and Tell to put the ‘stars’ right on top! To recap the night, I want to give a big thanks to:
Merry Christmas to all and may your holiday be warm and cozy like the quilts you make! See you Thursday, January 11th at Karen McTavish’s Quilt Studio!     Here is a peek of what our members have been stitching up! These finished quilts are done just in time for winter. Can you believe it's November already! 2017 is just flying by! The temperatures have definitely turned toward winter and now, with daylight savings time gone, the nights will be long.
Well, we have a solution for that! Join us Thursday, November 9th from 6:00 to 8:00 at Karen McTavish's Quilt Studio for a warm night of sparkling conversation and beautiful displays of creativity. Agenda is below. Guild News
Demo/Teaching Moment Quilting with Rulers: Ever wonder what people mean when they say their quilting was 'ruler work'? Ever wonder, 'how do you quilt with a ruler on a domestic machine?' Ruthann will share with us a short video and her experience working with quilting rulers. She will also bring with her quilting rulers and her machine equipped with a ruler foot. If want to try quilting with a ruler, please bring a small quilt sandwich to the meeting. Show and Tell We have had an Autumn, full of quilty inspiration....Donalee's Improv with Intent class....Jamie Swanson's Luminary Quilt class....If you have a piece from either class to share, we'd love to see it. Please bring it to the meeting on Thursday (completed or in progress). It would be fun to get a group photo! Then of course there's all the goodness you all have been working on the past month. We want to see it all! See you Thursday, November 9th, from 6:00 to 8:00 at Karen McTavish's Quilting Studio, 1831 East 8th Street |
The Lake Superior Modern Quilt Guild meets the
2nd Thursday each month from 6pm-8pm at Harrison Community Center (3002 W 3rd St in Duluth) 
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