A charming evening

Our May 2010 meeting took place at PNCA on May 20th.  Thirty quilters were in attendance and expressed appreciation to Katie Sciarrino for designing our logo, which she and Amber are making into name tag buttons.

Elizabeth Hartman gave a brief presentation on the history of charm quilts and charm squares. Historically, charm quilts contained only one piece of each fabric.  Charm quilts were seen as early as the 1870's and have had occasional resurgences in popularity over the years.  Today, charm packs of 5" fabric squares are widely available by many manufacturers.  Elizabeth discussed several uses for charms in quilts and invited any interested members to complete a project to bring back for show and tell.

Each member brought charm squares for swapping and it took two large and two smaller tables to hold them all.  We were an incredibly quiet and polite group as we surrounded the tables to choose and count our charms.  Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the charms or the swap process as I left my camera in the classroom and am still hoping that it finds its way back to me.  In the meantime, I will try to make do with my iphone camera.

These 40 squares went home with me.

Following our charm swap Jen, Tania, Tobey, Tracie, Anne, Lisa P., Cherri, Linda, Wendy, and Lisa B shared quilts for show and tell.  If my camera is found or if any other members took pictures to share, I will come back and post them here as an update.

Robert Kaufman donated several charm packs of their beautiful Kona Cotton solids via Elizabeth.

And the winners were:  

Sorrell, Elise, Lisa B., Anne, and Kristin

Thank you Robert Kaufman!

Jill Collins donated several packs of rulers that she is designing and manufacturing with her husband.

And the winners were:

Circles -- Beverly

Squares -- Katherine

Hexagons -- Karen

Thank you Jill!

From now on, Saturday Night Sewing at Modern Domestic will be the first Saturday of the month, making our next sewing night June 5.  Lupine of MD is putting together a large basket of goodies as a raffle prize for us!

The next regular meeting of PMQG will be June 17 from 7 - 9 at PNCA.

I will be giving a presentation on a bit of a journey I have been taking this year in 

using solids 

and exploring liberated quiltmaking,

including a virtual field trip of my visit to the Amish Abstractions exhibition at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco in April.

After the presentation, there will be a show and tell of first quilts and most recent quilts.

Joan Callaway, PMQG Secretary