Capital Quilters Guild Meeting

Last night was the monthly meeting of the Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh. Several of my bee members and I drove downtown to Peace College, our temporary meeting place. It is not ideal for a large group. We have so many charity committees, special projects, library, etc. that need special tables, so we are pretty crowded in the auditorium setting. But we are grateful to have a place after losing the space we have rented for ten years from Wake County.

Anyway, it was very difficult to take good photographs in this auditorium, but I have tried to brighten them a bit in PhotoShop Elements.

First, here is a sneak peek at the raffle quilt for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2011. We will be hosting the Symposium quilt show and conference at Peace College again. The raffle quilt is already finished! Actually, it was made by quilt book author and judge Jane Hall and friends from her bee, in conjunction with the North Carolina Museum of History. Jane drafted the blocks from quilts owned by the museum. The quilt was donated to the museum in 2003, but they have given it back to us to raffle for Symposium. It is so pretty!

Although the blocks are from antique quilts, the fabrics are bright batiks.

This star block will be the Symposium logo.

There was another raffle quilt on display...the not-quite-finished one for the guild's Heritage Day next October. This time the Grandmother's Flower Garden top was donated, but the guild is adding a border and hand-quilting it. The border was designed by our own Karen Comstock, who is a pattern designer.

Our guest speaker was quilt book author and pattern designer Sally Schneider from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spoke to us about Built-In Borders. Instead of adding a long border strip, Sally pieces blocks that form a border design.

Sally generously displayed her quilts on tables at the back of the stage so we could take a closer look. My favorite was this Christmas quilt in traditional red, green, and white. That ribbon border looks great.

This one that she calls Super Bowl Stars does not have prairie points...those are pieced blocks for the border.

I did not get the borders in this picture, but my friend Mary loved the colors and fabrics in this quilt.

Finally we had the Charity Quilt parade. We make Quilts on Wheels for rest home residents, Quilts for Kids for neo-natal intensive care nurseries, and SafeChild quilts for a child abuse prevention program. The ones turned in each month are paraded by for us to see. I think all our recent snow days produced a lot of quilting in Raleigh!

I brought home nine more quilt tops to quilt. They will probably not all get done by the next meeting! I still have two quilt tops from my bee's sew-in to finish first.

All our children and grandchildren are coming here to visit this weekend, and it looks like the weather is finally going to be sunny and a little warmer. I am so happy that my family will be here!