Charity Work Party

On Friday, March 27, you are all cordially invited to a cutting party and potluck.

What: Charity kit cutting party
When: 9:30am - 2:00pm
Where: Kathy O'Brien's house, 1613 E. Crescent Way, Chandler
Telephone: 480-855-1318

Please bring the following:

Cutting mat
Rotary cutter
Omnigrid measuring tools
and a side dish/salad or dessert to share.

I look forward to a fun gathering!

Kathy O'Brien

Ugly Fabric - Quilt Challenge

It was so much fun last year that we are doing it again! If you have a piece of fabric that you consider to be ugly that is at least 1/4 of a yard in size, bring it to the March 17th meeting. Martha will put each piece of fabric in a plain paper bag and mix them all up. You will pick a bag and go home with someone else's "ugly" fabric. Just make a small quilt, wall hanging, or table runner, with some of the fabric visible on the front side. You can add whatever other fabric you choose. Bring it to show at the Small Quilt Auction this fall and see what other's did with their fabric. You can chose to donate your quilt to the auction or keep it for yourself.

Borrow Quilting Books from AQG

The Arizona Quilters Guild has a library of quilting books for members to use. They will send you the book at no charge. You just have to pay the cost of shipping it back to them. So check out all the great books available to you:

AQG Library

Book Drive Update

Ellen and Kelsey O'Brien, Girl Scout Troop #736, are working on a service project for their bronze award. They are collecting new and gently used books to benefit the Chandler Public Library, Gila Indian Reservation, and the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer organization. Children's books, chapter books, large print books, and audio tapes are being collected. The library will also accept National Geographic and Arizona Highways magazines. If you are interested in contributing to the book drive, please bring your books to the Nimble Thimbles meetings on March 3 and March 17. If you want us to pick up books at your home, please call 480-855-1318. Thank you.

February 17 - Meeting Follow-up

New Meeting Location
Beginning with our April 7 meeting we will be meeting at the Gilbert Historical Museum, 10 S Gilbert Rd, Gilbert, AZ 85299. You can park at the Museum or at the school adjacent. We will continue to meet at Temple Beth Sholom throughout March.

Book Drive
Cathy's daughters are working on their Bronze award for Girl Scouts. They are collection gently used books for the Gila Indian Reservation. You can bring book donations to the March meetings.

Program
We got a great program from Sue Bunch from Back to Back Fiber Products and Rita Blocksom from Gypsy Studios last night. Boy those alpaca's are sure cute and there fur makes soft batting. Thanks for sharing with us. For those of you who wanted to register for Cosmic Spirals a Wet Felting Workshop you need to email sue@bakctobackalpaca.com.

Desert Breeze Sew-in
Don't forget there is a free sew-in at the Desert Breeze Police Substation Community Room on Sunday, February 22 from 9:00 to 5:00. You bring your own projects to work on and stay for an hour or two or for the whole day.

Meeting Feb. 17 - Program on Alpaca Batting & Needle Felting

Sue Bunch from Back to Back Fiber Products, Mesa, AZ, will share her alpaca fiber products with the Nimble Thimbles at their February 17th meeting. When Sue began her quilting business and her sister, Linda, an alpaca ranch at the same time, their common love of fiber arts and their entrepreneurial spirit directed them to find a way to manufacture their Pacafil alpaca blended quilt batting. She will explain their journey from the alpaca farms in North America to finished Pacafil products and expansion of their products into the felting craze.

Throughout this hands-on evening you will also learn the techniques and tools of needlefelting. If you have not given this fiber craft a try you will be amazed at its versatility and visualize how you might blend it into your fiber crafting. Rita Blocksom, a familiar face to quilters in Arizona, collaborates with Sue. See where this new art form has taken her as she joins Sue in the presentation.

Arizona Block

I had an inquiry from a woman asking if Arizona had a designated block. She is making a quilt with blocks from different states where she has lived. This is a neat idea. You could also do a block for all of the states that you have visited. I found this neat Arizona Block on QuiltersCache.com.

(This picture is a picture of a cactus, not of the block.)

February 3 - Meeting Speaker

Our program will feature "How the Child Protective Services uses our donated quilts."
It will be presented by Melissa Zeller, the Community Liaison of Child Protective Services, East Valley.

Melissa is responsible for overseeing the entire East Valley, which includes two offices. She has been in this position for over a year and does a lot of public speaking as a representative for the Child Protective Services. She will explain to our group how donated quilts/blankets are received, stored, and distributed to the children.
Melissa will have photos and stories of how our donated items have made a positive difference in the quality of life for children in their care.
They do get a lot of their quilts and blankets from Project Linus (Phoenix and the West valley get more from AZ Blankets for Kids), and that they go through hundreds of them every year , and that every child gets to keep the quilt given to them.