Your host Lorraine Wilson welcomes you to join in on some summer stitching fun!
See your quilting buddies on “Zoom” once again.
Keep an eye out for your email invitation .
This Saturday July 16 at 10am
Mark your calendars and watch for your email invite for our monthly Sit N Stitch on July 16, 2022 at 10:00am
Hosted by Lorraine Wilson.
See you there!
The year of the guilds 30th Anniversary, Val Smith and I decided to make a new banner as an anniversary present for the guild. The current banner was showing its age and I had been thinking about making a new one for a while so this was a perfect opportunity.
Our thought process was simple. We wanted to have the Guild Logo and colours, represent the Fraser Valley and somehow incorporate the different styles of quilting from the guilds 30 years. After drawing up a plan we worked on different parts separately and then got together to put them together.
During this process we added a train and decided we wanted to have boxcars on our train. We wrote letters to 15 guild members that we knew had worked in miniature and asked them to help us with a project we were working on by making us a small quilt. We didn’t tell them what we were going to use them for so it would be a surprise but did give them some guidelines. We needed them a certain size and asked that they be light in colour as we knew they would be in front of the dark mountain.
During the June Guild meeting we had the banner there and covered. After we told the membership that we had an anniversary present for them we unveiled the new banner. As we watched everyone looking at it we were interested in watching the ladies who had made us a miniature quilt as they looked to see what we had done with them. One lady had a very disappointed look on her face as she didn’t see her quilt. Val who was standing beside her, whispered in her ear “When you don’t follow the rules, your quilt falls off the train and ends up in the water”. She was quite happy after that to see her quilt floating.
Inspiring, Learning, Creating and Giving through Friendship in Quilting
The words in the river were to represent the Guilds Mission Statement and are still relevant today, 15 years later.
Happy 45th Anniversary Fraser Valley
My first memories of the FVQG were when I noticed a small advertisement in the local paper that said:
Quilters – let’s get together and talk about quilting and start a guild.
Call Margaret at …..
And so, I did.
At first there were just 5 or 6 of us for several months and we met in each other’s living rooms. Often we came to my home because I had a baby who needed to be nursed and put to bed. (She is now approaching 46). We chatted about quilting mostly and did hand projects, shared magazines, and marveled at one gal who did amazingly perfect appliqué and had an unusual system of quilting with a very fine crochet hook – sort of a chain stitch through the fabric.
After a while there were too many people for a living room, so we started to rent spaces in halls and community places. It was great fun, but I soon realized I would never be a fabulous artist – more of a crafts gal – and some of the meeting places have been too far from my home to make it feasible to attend regularly.
Two more children and a busy job meant my output was modest. I helped hang quilts, organized a few things, etc.
One of my favourite guild efforts is the swapping tables we used to have before meetings.
What is it about cutting up fabric and sewing it back together that is so darn much fun?
Over the years, I have made lots of things for children, friends and community – I often think that making something quilted is the best response for a friend having a hard time.
I seriously marvel at the fabulous quilts that many talented members make – and have kept up my membership for all these years so that I can be inspired!
Many thanks to all the folks who made this lovely anniversary event happen. And especially big thanks to Margaret Clydesdale who got us all rolling!
When I set out to form a quilting group in 1977, I didn’t know what it would look like. I placed ads anywhere I could, asking people who were interested in forming a guild to contact me. The response was pleasing, and I met interesting people who were already making quilts, mostly in small groups. What they wanted was a meeting place where they could learn new techniques from others and compare and exchange patterns while enjoying a social experience along with expanding their knowledge of quilting.
Initially, there was a small core discussion group which included Wendy Wulff, Michelle Gallagher, Mary and Louise Frick, Monica Rieger and myself. Art and Vera O’Keefe came on board a little later. When we had agreed on some basic premises for the guild, we advertised our first meeting in Surrey. To our amazement, quilters came from as far east as Squamish and all the way from Vedder Crossing in the west. We were thrilled!
The longevity of the Fraser Valley Quilters’ Guild has demonstrated that quilters want to expand their knowledge within the context of a social connection. From the beginning we had planned for a library, newsletters and classes, but it was the brilliance of the quilts and patterns to which teachers from all over the world would introduce us that raised the guild to another level.
I am grateful to the subsequent members who recognized the many ways the entity of the Guild, through the diversity of its membership, could contribute to their communities. Every year the Guild donates a modest sum to a chosen charity. Over the years, various programs such as the Preemie Quilt project were introduced. This initiative alone has donated over 10,000 quilts to the preemie units of various hospitals. Members have also contributed quilts to Cops for Cancer and The Vancouver Writer’s Exchange, along with supporting many other charitable causes.
I could never have foreseen how the substantial gifts of time and talent along with the incredible generosity of our community-spirited members would transform the Guild and firmly root it, and its members into such a force in the community.
I feel humbled by the beautiful spirit and gracious, creative hearts the members have exhibited in planning, piecing, displaying and donating their quilts for almost half a century!
My mum was Jessie Daveen Kelly (called Daveen by everyone except the healthcare system) and I think she was member number 16. I probably have her membership card somewhere in the depths of my family mementos. She had been recently widowed after some lengthy time caring for my dad who had cancer and she was looking for something to do with her suddenly free time. Someone she knew took her off to the meeting and even though she was financially disadvantaged she managed to be pretty prolific. She pretty much only made log cabin quilts – 1 for each of her 21 nieces and nephews as each of them got married. She also did a few cathedral window cushions and a quilted vest and bag for me. She LOVED green and I wasn’t always impressed with the combination of lime green and spruce green . She only stopped quilting when she had a bad fall and shattered her left wrist so that it had to be fused into a position that wasn’t useful for quilting. I still remember Mary Ann visiting her in the hospital with a pile of quilts to show her.
When my marriage started to break down, I moved to be nearer to her and she encouraged me to join the evening group which had just started. I think I started with the first or second evening meeting. Mum encouraged me to take one of those sampler classes where you learn a different technique each week as she always said she wished she had taken one. I was sorting some old photos over Christmas and can see just how far I have come from those first, rather ugly, quilts. Now a days I do more art quilting and english paper piecing. I think Mum would have really liked the EPP but not been too sure about some of the other stuff.
Ever since, I have used quilting to make new friends wherever I moved. I was a member of the South Australia group and joined the Quilter’s Guild of the British Isles as soon as I moved to the UK. I am now a Trustee for the Quilter’s Guild of the UK. I encourage everyone to plan a trip to the UK during the Festival of Quilts which is 18-21 August this year and right beside the Birmingham Airport. Not as big as Houston, but much more innovative and very different. You’ll need at least 2 days.
FVQG came into my world in 1982. My husband had retired from the service and we returned to my family home in Vancouver that was my inheritance. Prior to this we had spent 7 years in Cold Lake where I had learned to quilt, and was involved with quilt shows, teaching basic quilting and held several other community service positions from Library chair, councilor for PMQ Medley River, Red Clay rep and volunteer wherever in the busy community.
Vancouver was different, the stress of learning to become citified kept growing and I became fearful. So, to keep focused on something I knew how to do, l took a quilting class from adult ed, and to remain, had to do each project in a more advanced way because the young instructor was unsure of what I might be there for. The bonus was that I learned about a jacket class by Frances Forniae that lead to a Barb Fraser Bag class that had me invited to come to a Lassie Whitman lecture. Lassie specialized in clothing and was the ultimate “made by loving hands” quilter.
Wouldn’t you know, I won a door prize! Lassie’s prize made me feel guilty but excited looking around Guildford library, seeing all the techniques that I didn’t know how to do and hearing there were workshops, I was caught!
June came and to my first of many quilt shows I brought in a landscape on a frame and invited anyone to quilt. You did not need to know how to quilt or have fine stitches. This was an experience and I still have the piece, along with the memories of the smiles and the wonder that there was a quilt waiting to be quilted.