General Meeting 2025
It’s not the catchiest of post titles, but the General Meeting is where big things happen. We have our elections, wrap up the year’s challenges, make big announcements and plot the course for the next year. Check out the news below…
We’re happy to announce the new officers for 2025!
President: Nicole
Programs: Rose
Membership: Connie
Treasurer: Cheralee
Social Media: Jennifer
We also now have online payment!!! It was a long time coming, but the 2024 officers are pleased to say that you can now make online payments for any of the current activities on the website. Quick reminder: Quilted Jacket Workshop Tara Faughnan Activities 2025 Guild Retreat We are using the Zeffy service. Zeffy is a non-profit FOR non-profits, so they solicit a percentage on the transactions to cover their own costs. The guild isn’t charged for transactions and neither are you. The percentage is automatically added, but it is 100% optional. You can change the percentage at any time before completing your purchase to whatever amount you choose. That may mean $0.00 and that’s fine. Please see the example below.
The next upcoming deadline is 01/31/2025, the last day to register for the Quilted Jacket website. We have openings, so if you care considering making quilted clothing, this workshop might be for you! February’s programming will cover general fitting for the upper body to support the workshop.
January Show and Tell
2025 Q1 Challenge
The Q1 Challenge will be Alternate Grids. The MQG is also offering additional content on this topic and we’ll be sharing that in meetings and on social media.
Wrapping up 2024
Last but not least, we drew the name for the annual prize. In 2024, we issued over 1525 tickets for participating in challenges, tackling meeting programming, helping with committees and activities, posting on social media and being a part of Show & Tell. Cheralee created a spreadsheet with each member’s name listed by the corresponding number of tickets they earned. One ticket = one line, fifty tickets = equaled 50 lines on the sheet, etc. Michele used a random number generator online to pick a specific line on the spreadsheet and the winner was Vivian B! Congratulations! The prize can go towards retreat costs or a quilting-related gift certificate. Members collectively earned 545 tickets in the UFO challenge, completing 109 UFOs! That’s amazing! We’re so happy to see so many beautiful projects move to the “Done” column.
December 2024 Sew Day
Our Dec Sew Day was a hit!
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of the recap, can we just take a moment and recognize something? When our guild has a potluck, members SHOW up. If you skipped the sew day, you didn’t just miss great quilts, lots of laughter and holiday cheer. You missed bagels, mini sliders, multiple soups, salads, cookies (so many cookies), a box of chocolates, cakes and pies… Not only are our members creative people, they are great cooks. Thank you so much for all of your efforts in the potluck department!
Let’s start with the latest announcements. Registration for the 2025 Retreat at Camp Crestfield is open! You can go here to enter your information. All of the information is on that page, but if you have any questions, please reach out. Something different this year, Cheralee is good to go with payments if you would rather do installments. All balances still need to paid by the deadline, March 22. 2025.
We are also partnering with Quilt Company East to give you two opportunities to see Tara Faughnan, the 2025 QuiltCon featured speaker! First is a Zoom lecture, Value Creates the Design, on April 21, 2025. The cost is $6 and we committed to 40 spots for our members. The second event is an improv workshop, the Give & Take Quilt. This workshop is also through Zoom on May 3, 2025. (This does clash with a special Saturday guild meeting, just so you know.) We have committed to 8 spots in this workshop. The cost is $70 and is 6 hours long. Both events, and more information, can be found here.
We still have room in our Quilted Jacket workshop! We have opened it up to non-members and need to get it filled. If you’re on the fence, please let us know if you have any questions. Find more info here.
If you didn’t hear the announcement, we have the candidates for the election next month! You can read a short bio for each woman in the email sent out December 12, 2024.
President - Nicole Gallagher
Programs - Rose Saville-Iksic
Membership - Connie McFadden
Treasurer - Cheralee Stover
Social Media - Jennifer Mack
You’ll be able to vote on Zoom this year, and we have other exciting announcements, so please make a point to join us next month!
Here’s the last, most important, news. ;) The Q4 UFO challenges are due in January. You are encouraged to bring no more than 5 UFOs for Show & Tell. If you received an email from Cheralee regarding previously submitted UFOs and photos, the deadline to respond to the email is Tuesday, December 31, 2024. To get credit for them, please submit photos for the previously completed UFOs if they aren’t on the Challenges page. This doesn’t apply to the projects you are bringing to the meeting. If you already replied, THANK YOU.
The last day for hashtags to count for THIS year’s round of tickets is December 31, 2024. Instagram has made some changes and we will need to count them by hand. This gives us enough time to make the counts and ensure you get credit.
January 2024 elections and recap
January’s meeting included a visit from the Heinz History Center, our elections, challenges and a Quilt Market review.
Hello and welcome 2024! We had a great meeting with elections for new officers, a speaker from the Heinz History Center and a review of Quilt Market in October. Because of a last-minute Covid diagnosis, I missed the December meeting/sew day, so I have a few updates there, too.
Eric Lidji from the Heinz History Center came to talk about an upcoming exhibit (September 1, 2024 through April 2025) featuring the work of local quilter, Louise Silk. Silk’s journey from 1970s textile artist and home ec teacher are on display as well as today’s works that are more personal and comprised of family clothing. It promises to be both deeply personal to her and to speak to the creative soul in each of us. Lidji explained that the first half of the event will be creating stitched pieces that will be added to exhibit for public display and the second half will be where the public can take the tiny pieces home with them. You can see examples on Silk’s Instagram account, @silkquilt. The name of the group of volunteers who will be piecing and stitching these small works will be BubbeWisdom Stitching Circle. If you are interested in participating, get the email from Mary pghmqg.programs@gmail.com
· President: The new officers for 2024 are Connie in Membership, Luiza in Social Media, Mary in Programs, Cheralee in Treasurer and Michele as President. Congratulations to the new officers and thank you to the 2023 officers: Mary, Gail, Jen, Erin and Cheralee. The retreat drawing winner was Zsofia!
· Membership: We now have 60 members, with 16 new members joining in 2023!
· Treasurer: A year-end update was shared and you can find that in the meeting slides in the Members-Only Archive. Our dues to the MQG increased because our membership grew as well.
· Programs: Weaving challenges were due at this meeting! The 2024 challenges were also shared – Q1 Temperature Quilts, Q2 Scrappy Quilts, Q3 Color Challenge and Q4 UFO Challenge.
Nicole and her mom, Kim Nixon, from Sewing Original Stitches treated us to a Quilt Market review. Quilt Market is an industry show for shops and professionals and showcases new products, new lines, etc. It happens twice a year, with one event always happening in Houston and the other rotating throughout the country. New products they brought to share were TenSisters Easy Piecing Grids, OdiShine glitter gel, and fusible scrap tape. Kim noted that handsewing’s presence at Quilt Market is on the rise, and also that some noted quilters are retiring. We really enjoyed learning from a shop’s perspective about choosing the range of products to offer. Thanks so much to Nicole and Kim!
December notes: The Meet Me At the Point charity quilt was donated to the Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh. It looks like everyone had a great day sewing and the swap of thread catchers was a festive success.
