OnPoint! June 2011

Thank you to everyone who contributed time and talents to make the Guild so successful these last two years. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best of Northern Star and am proud of the things we achieved together. The group has many capable leaders who contribute their special talents. Their commitment provides our legacy. As I look back and reminisce: serving as president has been a wonderful challenge, and given the opportunity I would do the same all over again. Quilting brings us together; shared experiences provide fond memories.

Looking forward: the superb incoming Board will lead us into 2012 and beyond with enthusiasm and integrity. Of course we also have many member volunteers in addition to the Board that contribute their time and expertise to make Northern Star successful. That is the combination that makes our reputation strong.

Newspapers, magazines, telephones and telegraphs still provide us with information. Today additional communications include websites, blogs, twitters and more. With thoughts of 2012 and beyond, I send you personal greetings in a text message I hope you might enjoy trying to decipher.

TWIMC: 2DAY I WAN2 THNQ 4 XLNT DAZ @ NSQG. ITZ BN GR8. Now ITZ TTR, and TIE.

GLA. BTW TC. TNT RMR and WML. BYKI it will B 2MORO. TA4N. TY4AYS. ATVB. CUL8R. BFF. RGDS.

All The Very Best, Before You Know it, Days, See You Later, Regards, Thank You For All Your Support, Time To Relax, Take It Easy, Great, Excellent, Best Friends Forever, Thank You, It’s Been, To Whom It May Concern, Today, Want To, Good Luck All, By The Way Take Care, Remember, Wish Me Luck, Til Next Time, That’s All For Now.

Susan Wilterding, President

It has been a pleasure to serve as your VP of Membership. I truly enjoyed being able to place more names and faces together! I have had the blessings of many generous volunteers throughout this past year. At the guild meetings during the year I could count on: Pat, Althea, Nina, Brenda, Melanie, Sheila, Carolyn, Laura, Jackie, Cathy, Carolyn F., Sandy, Barbara and Linda, to help me greet each of you.

The membership form is available on line. Fill it out on line and then print it. You can bring your form to the salad supper on June 21 or mail it to the P.O. Box. Please remember to fill out the volunteer section of the form. Many hands make light work and having a pool of talent makes it happen.

Please welcome Diane Linker as our new VP of Membership for the 2011-12 Guild year. Enjoy the summer.

Patti Calautti, VP Membership

I want to thank all the members of Northern Star for their adaptability and willingness to change the way we’ve done things over the past year. Gradual changes added up quickly. You started with a visit to our website to see who the next speaker was; confidently moving forward by filling out your membership form online. You now all receive your newsletter via email or read it on our website. Your acceptance was evident with your willingness to use our online entry form for the quilt show. I personally have to say this was an overwhelming success. THANK YOU!

Next year, I hope to work behind the scenes and finish up a few loose ends. I’m also looking forward to working with Carolyn Finn as she takes over as VP Communications. This position is pretty exciting since technology is changing so fast. Remember ask if you have questions, don’t be shy. Carolyn will need your support, and I’m sure you will all be happy to give it. This is a big job for one person, so please volunteer for some of the positions she will need to fill.

I want to thank Barbara Jay for all of her hard work this year putting the newsletter together and making it ready for the website. Thanks also to Helen Boland for taking so many wonderful photos at the meetings. This really freed me up to attend to other business. Thanks Ladies, you made my work easy!

Timeless Treasures Summer Round Robin

Timeless Treasures extended an invitation to Northern Star quilters to participate in their first Round Robin Challenge. They will provide their organic fabrics to our Guild teams to create 36” by 48” baby quilts this summer. At the conclusion of the Challenge, the quilts will be donated to charity.

We have requested fabric for eight Challenge groups and anticipate starting by June 1. Thank you to all who signed up, and also to read this in the newsletter, the Round Robin will be underway, and we look forward to seeing the results.

Deirdre Abbotts, VP Communications

Salad Supper! Please bring a salad to share, along with a serving spoon and list of the ingredients. Tables will be set up at 6:00 and dinner served at 6:30 p.m. Thanks!

Carolyn Thye, VP Hospitality

Congratulations, Northern Star Quilters’ Guild members!

I couldn’t leave town without expressing my grateful thanks to one and all for such a successful quilt show. We couldn’t have done it without you, your beautiful quilts, your volunteer hours … and without all those creative individuals who have led the Quilt Show efforts over the years. Today I am thinking of Margaret Phillips, Susie Andersen, Liz Doyle, Mary Cannizzaro, Barbara Sferra, Kathy Vanacaro, and Mayann Weinberg who moved the Show from clothespins and dark aisles to the modern rods with plastic chains and well-lighted wall side aisles along with many many additional advancements along the way. The Show was gorgeous!

The 184 registered quilts filled the room with beauty! The juxtaposition of the invitational antique quilts and modern art quilts was wonderful; the black and white doodle quilts, the “Work of Art” challenge, “Once Upon a Time” exhibit, the “Music Makes Me Create” Guild challenge, and the Comfort Quilts display all worked to increase the excitement in the show space. The Boutique was much appreciated by our members and our visitors … one of whom ran out of money while shopping in the Boutique. Great appreciation was expressed for the sale of magazines and books holding old treasures.

Our vendors have been most complimentary in their thank you notes remarking on the beauty of the show, the delicious Friday night supper, and the peaceful, friendly atmosphere throughout the week end. One vendor even stated that the NSQG Show is the standard against which all other shows are compared! Wow!

Rest well … Well done! and thanks again.

Build-A-Block Quilts

Above are seven of the nine Build-a-Block quilts made by Quilt Show visitors and assembled by Comfort Quilters under Cathie Billings leadership

Caryl Castellion, VP Quilt Show

Show and Tell

Show and Tell at the May meeting was small but wonderful, with many of our quilt show ribbon winners exhibiting their prize-winning quilts. We also saw some products of recent workshops. It’s always fun to see what comes out of the workshops.

Special Interest Groups

Trip to the American Folk Art Museum – The Special Interest Groups are taking a trip to the American Folk Art Museum on Thursday, June 9th to see the new (and maybe last at this location) exhibit and everyone is invited to join us. We will be meeting at the entrance to the museum at 45 West 53rd Street at 1 pm. If you’re interested in joining us, please send me an email.

Art Quilt Group – The Art Quilt Group will not be meeting in June but they are working on coming up with ideas for next year’s Group Challenge.

Hand Applique Group – In May, Denise Isherwood and I both demonstrated dimensional appliqué techniques. Several members brought in Show and Tell, both appliquéd and pieced. The group will not be meeting again until September, so time was also spent discussing ideas for next year’s meetings.

Dear Jane Group – The next meeting will take place on Saturday, June 18th at 10 am at The Apple Bank for Savings, 666 Columbus Avenue, Thornwood, New York. The Dear Jane Group will continue to meet over the summer, once a month on Saturdays.

Long Arm Group – The next meeting of the Long Arm Group will take place on Saturday, June 4th at 10 am to see a demo of the ProStitcher and how to use groovy boards. If you are interested in attending, please contact me. The Long Arm Group will continue to meet over the summer, once a month on Saturdays. The dates are July 9th, August 6th and September 10th.

Kids Can Quilt – The three quilts made by the first graders at Katonah elementary school with the assistance of the SIG were displayed at the May meeting. They will be hand tied by the children and then be donated to the Friends of Karen. To join this group, contact Melanie Darensod

This is my last newsletter article as VP Education and I just want to say thank you. It’s been a wonderful two years and I have learned so much from doing this job, about quilting and about how we all function together. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to meet so many members in the small group setting of the SIGs and to have made some new friends along the way.

Diane Linker, VP Education

2012 Raffle Quilt

We are pleased to announce that the proceeds of the 2012 raffle quilt will go to the Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation.

Comfort Quilts

Thank you for your support of Comfort Quilts at the quilt show boutique. Many lovely kits were purchased. If you missed your chance to purchase a special Comfort Quilt kit to use for your own needs, no worries, they will be available for sale at the June general meeting.

Ronald McDonald House – Block of the Month

The block of the month project continues to be a success! Thank you so much for your support of the Ronald McDonald house! Please continue to support this worthy cause with the June block of the month!

The block for June is a Churn Dash Block. You will be using purple and beige fabrics for this block. Remember to press the seams to the side, not open. For further directions, please check out the link under Charitable Activities on the web site. You can also see the blocks for future months there as well. There will be a container at the membership table to receive blocks in June.

As you notice from the web site, there are blocks listed for July and August although we don’t have regular meetings in those months. If you place one or two blocks in a legal size envelope you can mail them to Pat with a regular stamp. Her address in listed in the NSQG directory. This is strictly a volunteer project, but we would love to have each of you join us. Questions? Call Pat Baker.

Upcoming Meetings: June 1 will be the last meeting held at the North Salem Volunteer Ambulance Corp., 14 Daniel Road, North Salem. Beginning June 15th we will meet at Congregation B’nai Yisrael, 2 Banksville Road, Armonk, NY. During the summer, Comfort Quilts meets every Wednesday. Please come and join in on the fun! Dates are subject to change. Please verify the date with Carol Auer or Karen Carlson.

Barb Tatera, Charitable Activities

Sincere thanks to all my helpers these past two years for all your hard work making the library run smoothly. Chris, Mickey, Melanie and Joanne, I could not have done it without you. Judy and Sharon, thanks for all your help coordinating the book sales.

A reminder to the membership: our annual library sale will be at the June Salad supper. Please bring in all your used books but only bring in books that you would want to add to your collection and please only bring in magazines that do not have pages ripped out of them. Many ladies have been disappointed in the past to find out when they go through a magazine that a pattern they would want was missing. Thank you in advance for all your generous donations. It has been a pleasure to serve as your librarian .

Joan Weth, Librarian

This is the final report from the 2010/2011 By-Laws Review Committee. The vote on the five proposed amendments took place at the Guild’s Annual Meeting, held on Tuesday, May 17th. All of the amendments passed, with only a scattering of “no” votes. The By-Laws document will be revised accordingly and published in the 2011/2012 membership booklet.

Once again, I would like to thank the committee (Susie Andersen, Diane Linker, Carol Sterk, and Susan Wilterding) for their time and commitment to this process, and Deirdre Abbotts for her efforts in distributing all the necessary information via mail and the website. We also thank you, the members, for your time and consideration. We feel that the By-Laws as revised will better serve the Guild now and in the future.

I also want to join with other members who knew her as we mourn the death of Dana Fuller. Her suggestions to clarify some wording during the last By-Laws review formed part of the basis for this year’s work, for which we are grateful.

Andrea Winter, Chairperson

Judy Gignesi is among the artists in the “Birds, Bees and Butterflies” show at United Hebrew Lazarus Gallery, 391 Pelham Road, New Rochelle, NY through Sept. 9.

June 3 – 4 “Quilts Along the Thames,” Thames River Quilters show. Admission: $8.00. Ledyard Congregational Church, 722 Col. Ledyard Highway, Ledyard, CT. betmon1@comcast.net

June 4-5 Mountain Laurel Quilters Quilt Festival IV, Sarah Noble Intermediate
School, New Milford, CT www.mountainlaurelquiltersct.com

June 4-5 Peconic Quilt Show, Suffolk Community College, Riverhead, NY
www.eliqg.org

June 24-26 Vermont Quilt Festival, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, VT www.vqf.org

Now through June 30, Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) of India
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City,
www.henrydrewal.com.

June 16 – August 6, Noriko Endo’s Impressionist Quilts at ArtQuilt Gallery•NYC, 133 West 25 St., NYC www.artquiltgallerynyc.com

Now through September 25, ”Superstars,” American Folk Art Museum, Lincoln Square branch NYC, www.folkartmuseum.org.

Now through October 16, “Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum,” American Folk Art Museum, 53rd St., NYC www.folkartmuseum.org

August 18-21 World Quilt Show – New England. The Radisson Center of New Hampshire, Manchester, NH. www.quiltfest.com