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June marks the end of our Guild year – and the fourth month that we have not been able to get together for our Guild meeting at Kennedy Catholic.  We miss the noisy buzz as we crowd around the membership table, sign up for programs, buy raffle tickets and share stories and tips.  We miss the tasty snacks and browsing through the library books and magazines.   We miss being together.

Still, we have much to be thankful for.

Despite us all being homebound, the Quilt Show Raffle was able to go ahead on schedule – over Zoom!  Thank you to Anne MacDonald, who hosted, and to her husband, Bruce, who was a such a great sport and drew the winning tickets from the drum set up in their living room.  (For those wishing to see the drawing you can find the recording here.)

We are proud to report that the Raffle raised $3,954 for New Dawn Family Resource Center in Pound Ridge.  This is a tremendous accomplishment given that there was no Quilt Show at which to sell the tickets.  Anne MacDonald pulled out all the stops, preparing emails encouraging member support and filling in all the information on the tickets for people buying through the mail and online. Lisa at Pins and Needles also advertised the raffle in an email to her customers who responded generously.  And, as always, the membership rose to the occasion, breaking all records by buying tickets and selling them to friends and family.

Sixty-seven of us watched Joe Cunningham live from his studio in California and another 36 logged into the recording.  It was a wonderful opportunity to have a presentation from a renown quilter who we would not be able to afford to bring to New York for a live lecture.  He was extremely entertaining and it was fascinating to see his studio and his unique quilts. His philosophy of quilting was both inspiring and a challenge to take risks and break rules.

Although we cannot have our usual salad supper, Linda has pulled off another coup for June 16 – as she announces in this Newsletter!

Also in the Newsletter is the 2021 Challenge that April Russell is organizing.  Her theme stressing hope, support and kindness is one we all want to embrace at the moment.

Many of you are helping to keep us all connected.  A shout out to Rosemary DePaola who continues to pick up our mail, to Mary Cannizzaro for offering her Zoom workshop on pouches to the membership, to Carol Sterk who is keeping in touch with our newer members, to Comfort Quilts for not letting lockdown interfere with the summer project — and, of course, to all of you who contribute to the Show and Tell, who run SIGs over the Internet and reach out to other members in a myriad other ways.

Carol Auer shared this article with us:  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/the-calming-effects-of-sewing-can-help-people-express-and-calm-themselves.  A number of you will have already read it but for those of you who haven’t, it recounts the calming effects of sewing. The author recalls the time when her mother first introduced her to sewing.   It is a beautiful piece which may stir a lot of pleasant memories and holds relevance for us at home sewing during this difficult time.

We are looking forward to the time we can all be back at Kennedy together.

Until then, take care and stay healthy.
Anne and Karen, president@northernstarquilters.com
June 2020

ZOOOOM!

These are difficult times, unprecedented for most of us.  The news is sobering.  Some of us are fortunate under the circumstances. Other members may be facing challenges and even losses of family or friends, and to those members, we hope you know that our thoughts are with you.

We hope you have all been able to find pleasure and relief from the daily stress in your sewing.  Thank you to all of you who have lifted our spirits with photographs of your comfort quilts, masks, works in progress and quilting stories.  These photographs are fun to see and inspiring to us all.  Please keep sending them in.

Our May and June meetings are cancelled.  Kennedy Catholic is still closed for the time being.  We are continually considering our options regarding guild activities and will be sure to keep you informed.

We are missing the opportunity to see each other in person but online we have been treated to the striking quilts in Timna Tarr’s chronicle of her quilting history and educated by Cindy Grisdela’s experiments with color choices and improvised combinations in her lecture and workshop.

Although our May meeting is cancelled, Linda Stern has pulled another rabbit out of the hat and Joe Cunningham will be giving us a tour of his San Francisco studio and his quilts via Zoom that evening.  More to follow.  Linda definitely deserves a standing ovation!  Thanks to Anne MacDonald who has been volunteering her Zoom skills and smoothing the way for these events.

Also at the May meeting we would normally have voted on the nominations for Board officers for 2020-2021.   Unfortunately, that vote will have to be postponed.

We want to thank those members who have agreed to be nominees for next year’s board:  Secretary:  Rona Spar; Co-Treasurers: Rebekah Glacy and Karen Martinez; Co-Vice Presidents: Communications – Daisy Dodge and Deborah Warren; Vice President:  Membership – Carol Sterk: Vice President: Programs – Linda Stern; Vice Presidents: Quilt Show – Narcita Medina.
We are also grateful to Susan Fasnacht who will continue to give us the benefit of her advice as former President, to Kathy Keane and Nancy Picco who continue to chair Hospitality, to Deborah Tashjian as returning Librarian, to Dee Plouffe who will be chairing Charitable Activities, to Anne MacDonald who will be Assistant to the President and to April Russell who will be the Activities Liaison.

Who could have imagined that we would have the opportunity to put our sewing skills to use in a national emergency? Many of our members have answered the call and have been very busy sewing masks for hospitals, nursing homes, first responders and other organizations.  Be sure to see Susan’s update below about the guild’s face mask production; Carol Auer has been a very busy mask maker, having sewn 650+ masks!

Jennifer Larrabee is putting together a quilt, hopefully to be hung at next year’s quilt show, collecting 6½” blocks made from scraps of fabric used for masks or other PPE.  See the committee news below for details.

The Raffle continues, despite the Quilt Show cancellation, with the opportunity to win the beautiful Sunshine Star Cabins quilt organized by Pat Julian and a Bernina Sewing Machine donated by Pins and Needles.  This is your opportunity to support our 2020 charity, New Dawn Family Resource Center. Please help by donating and by returning your raffle tickets, see Anne’s information below.  The Raffle Drawing will take place May 19, hopefully via Zoom before Joe Cunningham’s talk.

Signs and colors of spring are all around us in the new growth pushing through the soil, the trees coming into bud, and the blossom – all harbingers of renewal and the arrival of happier times as well as sparks for our creative imaginations!

Keep on sewing and by next spring may we will all be together enjoying the wonderful quilts of our Quilt Show.

Wishing you all health.
Anne and Karen, president@northernstarquilters.com
May 2020

We hope that this April Message finds you all well and in good spirits.  These are certainly strange and unsettling times but, we imagine that, like us, you are finding your sewing a wonderful escape and joy.  We are very lucky.

As expected, our April Guild meeting at Kennedy Catholic and the workshop the next day is cancelled. The April Board meeting will take place “virtually.”

Although we have all been confined to our homes, our members have not been idle!  Thank you to all those of you who have shared your photos, sent instructions for making face masks and addresses to send them to, emailed links for online quilt workshops, and have set up remote meetings to keep everyone connected.

Jane Eyes and Meg Mooar held a Zoom meeting for the Improv SIG.  Jane set up the “room”, fielded tech questions and generally troubleshooted, and the group had a lot of fun showing and discussing its blocks and planning the next project.

Linda Stern has been in touch with our speakers and has arranged for our March speaker, Timna Tarr, to give her presentation to the Guild remotely via a link on her website on the date of our April meeting.  We will be sending out instructions shortly.  Linda has also been discussing with our April and May speakers the possibility of making similar arrangements and even holding a workshop online. And we will be contacting workshop participants about refund processing. Stay tuned!

Please keep the wonderful photos and descriptions of your projects coming for the Show ‘n Tell that Karen is putting together for (hopefully weekly) email blasts.  In addition, Margaret Cibulsky has kindly agreed to organize one Wo/Man Shows.  Karen kicked it off with her email about using up her stash and other emails and Instagram posts are planned.  If you would like to do a similar show of your quilts, on any theme, please let Margaret know. We would all love the opportunity to see the amazing talent in our Guild.

Narci led the Quilt Show committee in the dismantling of the Quilt Show preparations and with Rebekah’s and Karen’s help, have returned vendor deposits and quilt registration fees.  A big thank you to them all.

Thank you too to those of you who are sending in your raffle tickets for the beautiful Quilt Show raffle quilt and Bernina sewing machine.  Anne MacDonald is sending out blocks of books to a number of members who have offered to sell more.  Please remember to send in your raffle books and let Anne know if you need more tickets to sell to family and friends. You can also make a donation to New Dawn via our website if you prefer.  Here is the link for further information about the raffle: https://www.northernstarquilters.com/charitable-activities/raffle.

Many of you are making face masks.  Susan Fasnacht is keeping track of the number sewed by the Guild, so please send Susan an email, activities@northernstarquilters.com, with the number and destination of any sent out.  Send photos too! There is a great photo on Instagram of the administrator of BronxCare nursing home showing off one of the masks that were sent from a member of the Guild!  Check it out at #northernstarquilters.

We are trying to stay connected with everyone.  We may be home but we are so fortunate that we can keep in touch, so continue sharing your ideas, patterns and photos via email, Facebook and Instagram – social@northernstarquilters.com.
If you have any questions about the status of guild activities, please contact us.

Most of all, we hope you stay safe and healthy.

Anne and Karen, president@northernstarquilters.com
April 2020

Great Super Saturday by our coordinator, Annette

This month a big shout out to all those people who made the February events such a success.

Kudos to Annette Nash Govan who organized Super Saturday at the Ossining High School with such quiet efficiency and aplomb.  This was a new venue for Super Saturday and it turned out to be a great space.  Our appreciation to all who made it possible – to our member teachers who shared their expertise and made it fun to learn a new skill or pattern –  Tami Drucker, Daisy Dodge, Rosemary DePaola, Caryl Castellion, Diane Linker, Carol Sterk, Patricia Loquet, and LuAnn Bruce – and to our Hospitality Chairs –  Nancy Picco and Kathy Keane – for the delicious snacks and lunch.

Linda Finegan pulled out all the stops at the Ugly Fabric Auction and to great effect – the Auction made the grand total of $1,114!  Congratulations to Linda and her helper, her daughter Eve Lott and all those who worked behind the scenes, sorting and labeling the fabric, including, Rosemary DePaola (who gave over her house for the project), Narci Medina, Nancy Picco, Kathy Keane, Althea Nolan, Linda and Sarah Stern, Barbara Glab and Rona Spar. Last but not least a thank you to all of you who donated fabric and generously opened your wallets on the night to go home with some interesting and challenging additions to your stash.

Finally, many thanks to all those members who came along to the Amanda Browder Sewing Day.  Everyone who showed up had a fun time. It is a real pleasure, as sewers, to be able to contribute to such a unique community project.  For those of you who couldn’t make it, there are still sewing days taking place in various communities through March: https://artswestchester.org/sewing-days-with-amanda-browder/.  Don’t forget to visit the finished display starting in May.

If you are not signed up for our Instagram account (and our numbers are increasing daily!), you are missing some great photos!  Keep them coming everyone.  For instructions on getting started, you can follow these directions.  We will also be having a ‘Sarah’s Corner’ by the Programs Table for those wanting some additional help.

Just one final note.  We are still seeking a member)or two) to take on the Activities Liaison role next year and another member (or two) who would be Assistant to the President, with the exciting prospect of taking over the Presidency in 2021.  Please give it some thought.  Also contact us if you think you would be able to provide a supportive role that could make it easier for another member to take on the main responsibility.

At the March Guild meeting, Timna Tarr will present her lecture, Design with Flying Colors.  She will be sharing stories of how antique and old family quilts influenced her contemporary works which should provide a fascinating bridge between the old and the new.

We are also very excited to see your Visions for 2020 as the Challenge Quilts are displayed and we all get to vote on them.

See you on the 17^th!

Anne and Karen, president@northernstarquilters.com
March 2020