Author: Cat Nichol

On a lovely warm evening, we had good attendance at the club meeting, welcoming a new member and a visitor. Show and tell included some of the small picture quilts made at the workshop with Julia Gahagan on June 8th. All agreed that this was a successful and enjoyable workshop. We are looking forward to the next workshop with Kate Findlay on October 12th.

The main part of the evening was a very informative talk about threads, needles and wadding by Yvonne from Village Fabrics, details of which are included in the Summer Newsletter, accessed via the link above. Village Fabrics have moved to Herefordshire but their phone number has remained the same as when they had the shop in Wallingford. Yvonne also brought along a small shop and many members took the opportunity to top up their stashes! Even if you had been sewing, patchworking and quilting for many years, there was much to learn from the talk.

We have given a large number of Premmie quilts to Basingstoke Hospital this year and a few more were donated at the meeting.

In 2025 it will be 25 years since Market Square Quilters was formed. We welcome ideas of how we can celebrate our Silver Anniversary.

At tonight's meeting, we had feedback and questions about the Block of the Month programme, led by Cat. We are now on month 5, with 4 blocks still to go. Sharing of finished quilts is scheduled for January 2025

The group is hoping to run a coach to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC, but we need the coach to be full. With a full coach the cost will be £37.50 and £47.50 for non-members. Entrance and parking are expensive for this exhibition, hence the cost. Anyone who would like to sign up please email MSQ or contact Teresa to be added to the list.

There were some lovely pieces of work in Show and Tell, including more premmie quilts.

Another well attended meeting with lots to Show and Tell. The focus of the later part of the meeting was Gizmos and Gadgets. Many members brought along items which they found very helpful and useful, or in one or two cases, not! It was an interesting time to share ideas and perhaps show gadgets which people may never have come across.

There was a lot of lovely work on show:

A very well attended March club meeting saw a good selection of lovely work for Show and Tell. Some of the quilts and other items can be seen below.

There is a new Newsletter available to read - please follow the link on the Newsletter tab.

Next month's meeting will be focused on Gizmos and Gadgets - what doesn't work as well as what does. Hopefully we will all have some advice on what to spend our money on and when to avoid wasting it on items which don't work or are of limited use!

Following Show and Tell, we had a very interesting, engaging and energetic talk by Christine Green, accompanied by slides. She explained how she reuses and recycles fabric, such as old curtains, oddments and even jeans into some striking and original quilts. She also told us about Gee's Bend Quilts, USA, a whole other talk on its own. She doesn't use a quarter inch seam or allow any rules to restrict her creativity. Below are some photos of Christine with a few of her many creations:

On March 2nd, 16 members attended a one day workshop entitled "Free-Motion Stitching and Fusible Appliqué" given by Janet Clare. We learned how to write our names, draw faces, penguins and chairs before finally sewing a scene with trees, flowers and appliqué cottages. Janet gave us plenty of help and advice and by the end of the workshop we had all produced scenes, in addition to gaining a lot more confidence in free-motion sewing.

Another well attended meeting, at which Caroline gave a very interesting talk, illustrated by pictures and slides, about hand quilting. She explained the history of quilting, the types of quilts typical of different places and techniques of sewing. There were also lots of lovely premmie quilts in Show and Tell:

There were also some Linus quilts donated by Penny and Heather

Some more work shown at the meeting:

This must have been our best ever attended meeting, with 38 members and guests present. Cat launched the "Perfectly Pieced" Block of the Month programme, showing the completed 9 block quilt top which was designed to use up scraps, along with a "base" fabric to unify. The blocks are easy enough to be attempted by everyone, but the challenge is to get all the points correct, no mean feat.

There was also some lovely work in "Show and Tell"

December's meeting is traditionally a social event with a "pot luck" supper. The Christmas Challenge Sketchbooks were on display:

There were also Show and Tell items:

At November's meeting we had an update on our presence at the Mencap sewing event in the Kennet Centre and welcomed two new members who had heard about us there. Publicity for the event was better this year but there were still some issues to resolve. The next event is due to take place in February but we have decided not to have a presence at this one. We managed to raise over £50 for Mencap.

Rita demonstrated how to make a Christmas Angel - photo below.

This month there were some beautiful items in Show and Tell.

Our AGM was held in October so we did not have a Show and Tell. 27 members attended. All the present members of the committee are continuing in post and Jane S is joining the committee, a very welcome addition.

In January, a new list of members and committee list will be issued, along with the programme for 2024. If you are interested in joining us, come to a meeting, or, for further details please email us on [email protected].

The remainder of the meeting was taken up by a talk entitled "The Sewing Room" given by Heather, a suitable spooky tale for Halloween.