President, Kathy Wickham opened the meeting with 15 members present. She announced that our Vice President, Julianne Kramer, was in a severe car accident and is at home recuperating. She will follow up on ways we can help Julianne.

Secretary’s Report: Janice Taylor reported the minutes were posted in the current newsletter.

Treasurer’s Report: Carol Dillman reported that both quilt guilds made $265 hosting the National Quilt Day event. Since last month we have collected $80.00 in dues from new members.

Program Committee: Kathy Wickham announced that in June we will be doing the Tea Cup Exchange and table runner. Please bring a well-protected tea cup in a brown paper bag with any instructions on color preference and/or size of table runner needed to match that tea cup. Take a picture of your tea cup so you can identify it when it is returned at the August meeting.

Also at our June meeting Cathy Henderson and Kathy Wickham will be answering questions on how to make a Row by Row quilt. They will explain how to use patterns from Row by Rows acquired at quilt shops or completed rows that have not been sewn into quilts. Anyone with a Row by Row quilt or interesting stories about traveling to gather Row by Row patterns, please bring to the meeting. June 21st will be the start of some Virginia Quilt shops participating in the Row by Row pattern incentive.

July will be our field trip to Quilting Essentials in Salem. Please bring Show & Tells as the quilt shop likes to see our work. We are to meet at the shop at 6:30 pm for a presentation by the staff. They are opening up the shop just for us and will give us a discount on purchases that night.

A board meeting will take place at a location to be announced later, prior to the July meeting.

August will be our Silent Auction. Now is the time to clean out our sewing rooms of fabric, notions, patterns, magazines, rulers, unfinished projects, etc. Anything worthy of putting in the silent auction should be put aside too. Bring to the August meeting and bring your checkbook. All money goes to the guild. In the past years, we have had some very good bargains.
Our tea cups are to be brought back to this meeting also.

Kathy Wickham announced some up-coming quilt shows that were in the newsletter.

Tina Dietz brought in a “Suggestion Box” for ideas of speakers, programs etc. Please take advantage of it. It will be on the check-in table each month.

Tina introduced Betty Reynolds who showed us many types of Fidget Quilts. She also told us what not to put on Fidget Quilts. There are lots of ideas on You Tube and Pinterest. She said this is the time to use those fancy stitches our machines make. Also use some of that fabric we acquired and now have no idea what we were thinking when purchased! Tina brought in upholstery fabric for everyone to take home. Betty’s quilts were placemat size.

Kathy Wickham challenged everyone to make a Fidget Quilt either for an adult or child and bring it next meeting. Tina would like to do a display case of our Fidget Quilts at the Library. We could then do a workshop for the public who may be interested in making one. Remember these Fidget Quilts should be able to be machine washed and dried safely.

We had Show and Tells. Our newest member, Susan Parr challenged us on finding her quilting mistake in a log cabin patterned quilt. Kathy Wickham and Cathy Henderson brought in examples of the items made at the Pat Sloan workshop, Star Quilters had put on. Janice Taylor showed a purse she made to be donated to the DAR for an auction. Kitty Yates showed 2 quilts she had just completed, one a Drunkard’s Path and the other MSQ Dream Weaver’s quilt.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:00 pm.

Respectively Submitted,
Janice Taylor

Kathy Wickham, President, opened the meeting at 6:35 pm at the Blue Ridge Library. We had 21 members present and 3 visitors.

Kathy went over some of the following Bylaw recommendations from the Board:
1. We need to change the “inclement weather policy” from the Botetourt County School closings. The Board recommended we change to the Virginia Western Evening/Night class cancellations but with the caution of “using your own judgement.”

2. The Board also recommended, changing the name on the current Bylaws from Blue Ridge Quilters Guild to just “Blue Ridge Quilters” as that is the name on our bank account and we welcome new and experienced quilters.

Another recommendation from the Board was budgeting $25 for our Christmas Party and paying $50 per program to speakers with a maximum of $450 for the year. This fee will cover administration costs for the program and presentation. Any member of Blue Ridge Quilters has the option of doing a program for free or only expenses.

Tina Dietz, Program Chair, announced the upcoming programs:

May 2018, we will doing Fidget quilts. These will be placemat size. Fidget quilts are used for children, A.D.D. patients, those with Alzheimer’s and/or other forms of dementia, and learning disabilities. She has contacted Woodhaven Nursing home and since they only have 3 would love to have more of these washable play quilts. She had on display many items that we should be starting to collect. Items were zippers, Velcro tape, small palm size stuffed dolls/animals, handkerchiefs, buttons and little bits of lace. Tina introduced Betty Reynolds, who will do the presentation next month.

June 2018, we will do the Tea Cup Challenge with Juliana Kramer. Here we bring in a tea cup in a brown paper bag without our name on it, with instructions on size of table runner, if desired. Someone will take the cup home and using the colors in the cup make a table runner. These will be due back in August. Tina would like to present “Thinking Outside the Quilt and Thinking Outside the Block.” She would like to show us how to change designs with color pencils and patterns.

July 2018 will be our annual field trip. We have Quilting Essentials set up to receive us, give us tips on quilting, and probably a discount to shop. We will meet at the quilt shop at our regular meeting time, or members can carpool to the shop.

August 2018 may be our Silent Auction & Sale

If anyone knows of a speaker that the Blue Ridge Quilters would like to have, please contact Tina or Kathy.

We may do a mystery quilt in the 2nd half of the year, or Christmas ideas & patterns.

Tina Dietz and Cathy Henderson presented our program on Applicable Tips for Hand Applique. Kits were passed out for 2 small hands on projects to be assembled at the meeting.

We had show and tell with our newest member, Wanda Nawrocki showing two beautiful appliqued and hand quilted quilts she had made.

Those interested in the One Block Wonder quilts, brought in fabric for consultation with Loretta Twiford. We also had a few samples of finished One Block Wonder quilts. This future class has not been scheduled. Fabric needs to have 24” repeat in it.

Many door prizes were given out that Tina had furnished.

The meeting was adjourned 8:40 pm.

Respectively submitted by

Janice Taylor