Unfortunately, our speaker for tonight's meeting was unavailable through illness, so members took the opportunity to share ideas, show work in progress, work on their own project and take advantage of the time to chat to each other.

We had some lovely work in Show and Tell:

Two premmie quilts this month:

Tonight we had a fascinating talk by Harriet Riddell, who travels with her sewing machine. She has travelled extensively and through her free motion embroidery she captures the people and places. There will be a fuller report and some photos in the next newsletter, available at the beginning of April. In the meantime you can find out more by visiting Harriet's website www.institchyou.com

Some items of work shown this month:

We also had a good number of premmie quits to donate to the hospital this evening:

We had 30 members at our first meeting of the year. Cat launched the "Lincolnshire Posy" block of the month programme with a showing of the completed quilt top (yet to be quilted) as well as a demonstration of appliqué.

Geraldine and Gail gave us a brief account of their January quilting cruise "Chasing the Northern Lights" up the coast of Norway. They showed us the blocks which they had hand pieced using a variety of techniques. Here are some of the blocks they made:

We had some impressive work in Show and Tell this month:

Sarah T of Blue Cat Quilting displayed quilts as part of the Newbury Advent Calendar at the beginning of December, raising money for 3 local charities. Here is the work she displayed:

Finally, some Premmie quilts for donation to Basingstoke Hospital:

Twenty nine members enjoyed the Christmas Festivities at December's meeting with lovely food and drink and a game of book swap. Everyone took home a book on crafting at the end of the evening.

There was some lovely work in Show and Tell:

Just two little quilts for premature babies this month:

Finally, our Christmas Challenge this year was to make crowns from a pattern called "Crowning Glory" by Waves and Wild or any other type of hat members wished. We had 20 hats on display and on heads:

Rita's hat, made for her by Gail, which she forgot to bring!

Another well attended meeting with a speaker, Wendy Lloyd who spoke about her small stitched textiles. A report of this talk will be in the next newsletter due out in January.

As usual, we had some lovely items in Show and Tell:

There were also a few quilts for the premature babies:

Tonight was our AGM, which was well attended. The group now has 50 members so continues to thrive. Teresa has agreed to continue to be our chair for a second year and the committee welcomed Nikki. As usual, we had some lovely work in Show and Tell:

Finally, a couple of colourful quilts for the premature babies:

Tonight members enjoyed a demonstation of collage by Sarah N and Cat, used as inspiration for making modern quilts. Sarah in particular has expertise and an interest in making this style of quilt, with abstract designs and clear lines, where the quilting is simple and often linear. This activity was inspired by the Quilters' Guild Regional day last year, when Sarah Hibbert led the same activity. The premise is that ideas can be sparked by collages, which are fun to make in their own right. Members seemed to enjoy cutting and pasting and there were certainly some impressive results in a short space of time. Let's see if any of the collages turn into a quilt!

As usual, there was some lovely work in Show and Tell:

We also had a selection of Premmie quilts to donate to Basingstoke Hospital:

A well attended meeting to which members of Creative Stitchers had been invited. Members had been invited to bring along the first quilt or quilted project they had made and tell its story. Photographs of the quilts and their stories will be featured in the next Newsletter, available at the start of October. We also had a Quilters' Guild "suitcase" of miniature quilts to admire. We were able to loan these for the meeting and display them for people to examine. The idea is that in a photo of the quilt, a miniature quilt will look as if it could be a full sized quilt.

Here are some photos of the tiny masterpieces:

In addition to first quilts, we also had some more lovely work from our talented members:

And, as usual, we had a variety of Premmie quilts for donation to Basingstoke Hospital:

Market Square Quilters was founded in 2000 so this year the group was celebrating our 25th anniversary. From a few members at the start, we are now around 50 strong and continuing to flourish.

A full report of the event will be included in the next newsletter, but in the meantime here are the varied silver items which members brought along to support the Silver Celebration theme.

We welcomed Yvonne, another new member, to a well attended meeting. After the business part of the meeting and Show and Tell, Sue C did a demonstration of some of the different ways to Quilt As You Go. QAYG is popular because it enables quilts to be made in manageable pieces, especially if you are using a domestic sewing machine with a limited throat plate. Sue produced a handy overview guide to the different methods, which she showed us with samples. There are many helpful videos on YouTube , for example "Just Get it Done". Here is a photo of Sue with her samples:

Here is the work in Show and Tell this month:

A few premmie quilts were also donated