January Dates to Know

I hope you are all having a great holiday season!  I just wanted to let you know of our upcoming guild events so you can get them on your calendars.

Thursday, January 16th we will have our guild meeting.  Eva Marie will be teaching a class on making Cathedral Windows blocks.  I have always wanted to try these and am excited to learn!

Saturday, January 25th we will have a sewing day from 9 am to 9 pm at the Ankeny LDS Church.  Start the new year off right with some sewing.  Come all day or for a few hours!

Shameless asking for favors:  I (Leila) will need some help testing quilt block patterns in January/February.  I would provide printed instructions and fabric for three quilt blocks.  You would pretend that you know nothing about quilting and make them from the instructions.  Mark up the pages with any fixes or suggestions and then send the the instructions and blocks back to me (within two weeks).  If you want to keep the blocks you made for another project that would be fine.  All the returned blocks will be made into a quilt and published in a book.  !!!!!  These blocks will be used to illustrate a secondary quilt setting.  I believe in killing two birds with one stone.  ;)  I really want these instructions to be the best they can be and would love if you could help.  As an added incentive I would give each pattern tester a copy of the book when it comes out - hopefully by the end of the year.  !!!!!  Email me - or leave a comment if you could help - lmgardunia at yahoo dot com.

Have a Wonderful Christmas!

Happy Holiday Season from the DSMMQG!

It is so disappointing to get bad weather on the night of our meeting--freezing rain? Really?! We had to cancel the September meeting because of the wind storms, so we were determined not to cancel our last meeting of 2013.  We missed those of you who decided to stay home and stay safe (I don't blame you one bit!).

Leila led the meeting; we had a few show and tell items. Then we swapped holiday gifts.  When your turn came you could steal anyone's gift, or choose a new gift from the table.  Last year everyone was so polite, no one "stole" anything.  This year it was no holds barred! I had at least three different gifts in my hands at some point.  I thought you might like to see what some of our talented members made (I didn't get a pic of every single gift, but hopefully Melissa captured what I missed, so we will have more photos in the Flickr group (see our "Photos" tab on the menu bar above).

Eva Marie made this sassy Christmas apron:

Melissa's divided basket was extremely popular:

Sherry made quite a few of these gift card holders, and these went along with some notions and a fun book by Malka Dubrawsky:

Jill McBroom made this cute Christmas organizer, inside pic included:

Hannah (our Junior member) made this scrappy pillow, she even made use of the fancy stitches on her mom's machine:

Leila has been busy making pillow covers, she gifted one with a pillow form to Jill; these are her other three:

an embroidered mini quilt, coasters and ornaments by Emma:

And the mini quilt I made by sizing down Kate Spain's In From The Cold Pattern:

Please join us for our next meeting, at the WEST DES MOINES Public Library, Community Room, on January 16, 2014. In the meantime, have a safe and happy holiday season!

November 21st Holiday Social--and MQG Website update

First, some housekeeping from Doris, our Website Coordinator: Last night, I listened in on the MQG Webinar regarding navigating the website. About an hour and 15 minutes, really good info, and you can listen to the recording here. (It won't waste your time, I promise! I was able to set up my entire profile, join our group, follow friends and posts, all while listening and didn't lose track of where they were. The webinar answers MANY of the questions we had for Emily at our last meeting about loading photos, finding content, contributing, setting up, etc.  

Every one of our members should log in and create a profile, "join" the Des Moines MQG Group, and start interacting there. In the end it should replace our flickr discussion group. And yes, I will keep hounding you reminding you to do so until you do. ;-)

There is currently not a place for a pool of photos within our group (Many photos posted in FORUMS however), but they are releasing features in stages because it is a huge, private community with MANY subgroups, a very complicated site to build from an I.T. standpoint. Patience is key, but so is feedback. 

We need to let them know what we want! Contact them using this page and ask for what you want to see!

*housekeeping done* (Wow. I wish that phrase was literally true at my home.)

Join us at 6:30pm on Thursday the 21st of November for our Holiday Social!

Urbandale Public Library

3520 86th Street, (in Meeting Room B)

Urbandale, Iowa 50322

Bring with you:

• a nametag!
• an appetizer, a beverage or treats to share
• an item to swap for our holiday exchange (Thanksgiving, Autumn, Christmas, Winter... the holiday you choose is up to you!) Does not have to be handmade by you.  Some from last year were ornaments, pillows, a fabric bundle, a tote bag:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (See our Flickr Group for more ideas.)

Not been to one of our meetings before? That's okay, come introduce yourself--the more the merrier!

Questions? Email dsmmqg@gmail.com or comment here.

Membership cards are here!

We now have membership cards that will allow you to get discounts at fabric stores! I will bring them to the next meeting. Emily

Foster Care Quilts

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!  We collected over 40 quilts!  If you weren't able to bring your quilt last night, there is still time to turn it in.  If you email me a picture of it and the age and gender of child it would be good for by Friday the 25th, I can get it into the "sign-up-to-donate-other-kit-items-binder" and you can bring me the actual quilt at our November meeting.  My email address is lmgardunia at yahoo dot com.
Thanks again!

Voting this Thursday

Hello all! I just wanted to remind you that voting for board members will be this Thursday. At the moment, the positions and people to fill them are: President - Emily Vardeman Vice President - Amy Martin Co-Programming - Leila Gardunia and Eva Marie Evans Treasurer - Sherry Von Fumetti Secretary - Membership - Website Coordinator - As you can see, we still need to fill three positions. If anyone is interested, please contact me at dsmmqg@gmail.com. Also, as a reminder, if you made a quilt or blanket for the foster care kits, please bring it or them (if you made several!) to the meeting. Leila will be collecting them. We also will be finishing up the tote swap since we didn't get to last month. Last, but not least, I'll be handing out the bundles of fabric for the Riley Blake fabric challenge. I look forward to the creative things this group will make from these fabrics! See you Thursday!

Charity Quilt Giveaway

How are those charity quilts coming?  We will be collecting them at our meeting this month.  If you will not be there please let us know and we can work out a way to get your quilts.  If you have finished a charity quilt you can link up a picture of it on my blog and be entered into a giveaway.  Let's just say that your chances of winning are really good right now.  ;) Giveaway closes tomorrow at noon.
Thanks!!