July Meetings

July 1st is Gudrun giving a trunk show, which should be pretty neat. Also we are going to do a book and pattern exchange so everyone can bring patterns/ books they no longer want.

Power Paws has agreed to do the program at the July 15th NT meeting. The meeting should be fun, we may have some 15 week old Golden Retriever puppies at the meeting.

Hope to see you all there!

Google Reader - Quilting Articles

I've added a new section on the right side of the blog. It is a box of articles from Google Reader. There will be articles on quilting there that will vary periodically. You can click on any articles of interest to you in order to read them. In some cases, once the article comes up you may only be getting a summary and may have to click on the article title to see the whole thing.

If you are interested in making the news of any type you select, come to you, you can sign up for your own free Google Reader account. Then, you search for and sign up for various feeds of news stories that would be of interest to you. No, I am not advertising for Google, just letting you know what is out there.

Sue’s Tips on Preparing Your Quilt for a Long arm Quilter

(These tips are also pretty good for preparing your quilt for your own quilting too.)

· Press well!!!
· Get all of the stray threads and hanging threads off the quilt. You might want to use a lint roller to assist. You don’t want anything that could get caught in the sewing foot and cause a rip in your quilt.
· Get the borders on the quilt properly. Measure through the middle of your quilt horizontally and vertically and cut your borders to this size. This will make your quilt square up properly. Back tack all seams on the border. Consider adding ½ inch extra to the border to allow for truing up when trimming.
· You might want to straight stitch around the outside edge of the quilt 1/8 of an inch from the edge to prevent stretching.
· Try to keep all fabric weights and types similar.
· On backs rip fabric at edge to find the straight of grain. Use this as your straight edge. When sewing seams use 1” seam allowance and then trim down to ½”. Use a smaller stitch length on the back and always back tack at the start of seams. Always press seams to one side on the backing, do not press them open. the backing needs to be a minimum of 3 inches bigger than the top all the way around - 4 or 5 is better.
· If you provide batting to the quilter, always provide the package it came in so that quilter can determine how closely the quilting needs to be done.
· Make sure you discuss clearly with your quilter what you want done on the quilt and what color thread you want used.
· If you are allergic to cats or dogs, ask the quilter if they have pets in their home. If they do, you should consider using another quilter because it is almost impossible to keep pet hairs 100% out of quilts.

AZ Blankets for Kids

Just a reminder that the Prickly Piecers are holding a sew in for the Az blankets for kids on Saturday the 28th at the firestation at 40th & Chandler. I hope that you and some of your group will join us for this happening. Thanks Diane Hansen , Prickly Piecers

Opportunity Quilt

A big thank you to everyone who took packets to make nine patch blocks for the opportunity quilt. Also, a big thank you to Sharon for coordinating this project. Please bring blocks back to Sharon by the first meeting in September. We plan to have the quilt completely done so that we can sell tickets at the AQG show in March 2009. Boy it does sure seem strange to be writing 2009, before I know it I'll be writing 2010!! This is a fund raiser for Nimble Thimbles.

Upcoming Meetings - Should be fun

June 17th is Sue Williams talking about long arm quilting and preparing your top for a long-armer.

July 1st is Gudrun giving a trunk show. Also we are going to do a book and pattern exchange so everyone can bring patterns/ books they no longer want.

June 22 - Free Sewing Day

Come to the Desert Breeze Police Substation, north side of Chandler Blvd., between McClintock and Rural Rd on Sunday June 22 anytime between 9:00am and 4:00pm. You can bring whatever project you would like to work on or work on one of the charity projects that will be available. If you want to work on charity quilts, bring your sewing machine and supplies for sewing, or bring your supplies to cut fabric into kits, or bring some hand sewing supplies to close up some of George's quilts.

You can come for part of the day or the whole day. You can bring a sack lunch or make a quick trip to a nearby fastfood place to get your lunch.

Fall Quilt Camp

Fall Camp dates are set as 11/14 through 11/16. There is a good likelyhood that we will also get Thursday 11/13 but that has not yet been finalized. See Lee Anna to sign up. Cost is $78 plus an extra $12 if you arrive on Thursday.

Quilts for a Cause

A Tucson group is coordinating Arizona's participation in "Quilt for a Cause, Inc.". They need quilts to help fight breast and gynecological cancer. Quilts will be accepted from 10/1/08 to 7/1/09. There will be a Live and Silent Auction on 10/3/09 at TMC's Marshall Auditorium in Tucson. The proceed recipients will be the TMC Foundation and St. Elizabeth of Hungary Clinic. Quilts must be of new construction. Quilt sizes restrictions: wall hanging - minimum of 18" up to 52" in any direction, lap quilt - minimum of 48" in width, up to 72" in length. They request that you sew a 3" sleeve on the back of the quilt. "Theme" quilts are encouraged. Possible themes include, but are not limited too: Holidays - religious, secular and/or patriotic, Season, Occupations, Ethnic, Sports, Animals, Juvenile, Gardening, Floral, Southwest - desert, cowboy etc. The website is http://www.quiltforacause.org/. For information contact: Jeannine Coleman at auction@quiltforacause.org.