By Carmel Bowers
Secretary
The Friends and Needles Quilt Guild met May 7 with 41 members in attendance for the Linus Project’s appreciation meeting.
Jennifer Metzger welcomed those in attendance and co-chairman Karen Gallop started the evening with an explanation of the secret word game. The secret word was “quilt,” which no one was allowed to say. If someone said the word “quilt” and was caught, the person caught would have to forfeit their ticket to the person who caught them. The member with the most tickets by the end of the meeting would win a Linus Project book, with Kim Hazlett’s quilt pattern published in it.
It was a fun time catching your quilting friends saying something they shouldn’t say. I was one of the first ones to have their ticket commandeered. The winner was Louann Ritchie, basically because she didn’t say much until after the meeting.
Contributed photo
QUILTERS — The Friends and Needles Quilt Guild recently helped support the Linus Project with their creations.
The next meeting will be held at the Houlton Country Club on Wednesday, June 5 at 6 p.m. Please bring a covered dish for potluck. This meeting our Secret Sisters will be revealed. So remember to have a nice something for her.
Hostesses for June are Brittany Benn, Mary Lowery and Pam Mailman.
This year’s guild challenge is Cat Tails, Cattail, Cat Tales. August will be here before you know it. So please get busy so we can enjoy your take on this challenge.
The guild’s raffle quilt is totally done and was shown at the meeting. It is, as always, gorgeous. Now members need to sell the chances for it so the guild will have the money for scholarship and workshops. Members will have three opportunities to sell them. First, at the “Wings and Wheels” event to be held at the Houlton International Airport hangar on June 8. Volunteers and times for the event are: 8-10 a.m., Carmel/Karen; 10 a.m. to noon, Sandra/Gail; 12-2 p.m., Toni/Trudy and 2-4 p.m., Jeanne/Jennifer.
Volunteers are also needed for Crafts in the Park, July 6, and Midnight Madness, July 7. Please volunteer for time slots on one of these dates. The guild is only as good as its members.
Today from 12-7 p.m. in Houlton High School’s small gymnasium, the guild will display the senior’s quilts. As many guild members as possible should try to stop by to vote for the best quilt in order to choose the recipient for the guild scholarship.
The presentation of the scholarship will take place at the Last Chapel, June 7, at 7 p.m.
The first board has been cut; the paper mock up has been done and the primer and paint have been donated for the Quilt Barn Trail. Peggy [Crane] has completed the pattern of her block in a quilt and it is hanging at her store.
A big thank you to Larry McCarthy for donating his expertise, S.W. Collins for storing and cutting the board, along with Sherwin Williams for donating the paint. Mac Moody has researched his quilt block, and has drawn it up, in memory of his mother.
The Friends and Needles Guild is preparing for the Maine State Quilt Show.
The guild’s challenge is getting ready to be sent down, “What is black and white and read/red all over?” Make sure you have your permission slip filled out and handed back to Jennifer as soon as possible. She will be gathering them up in July.
The Friends and Needles Quilt Show will be held Aug. 16-18. Many guild hands make light work, as the quilts will be hung on Aug. 15.
This meeting was the Linus Projects appreciation meeting. Hazlett reported that there were 122 quilts turned in by the guild this year. Since the 1970s, when the Linus Project was incorporated, there has been 4.5 million quilts given to children in crisis worldwide. The local guild has donated over 1,200 since 2004.
So for those quilters who had donated this year, their names were placed in a raffle bag. Trudy Long really wanted to win the Janome sewing machine — she made 20 quilts for the Linus Project.
The Linus Project headquarters gave each participating guild $200 towards a sewing machine to be raffled off. Guess who won it, that’s right the one who stacked the deck, Trudy Long, you deserved it for all your time talent and money that you donated to such a worthy cause. Toni Eppley won the Linus Project sewing machine carrier; Rae Ann Hutchinson won the Linus Project quilt book and several fat quarters. There were many other items that were raffled off to other quilters who donated quilts.
Thank you to all of you that donated on behalf of children everywhere in need of love and security.
