We met at Home Inn and Suites on October 26, 2025. We had a fantastic Annual General Meeting, led by Laura. Thank you for your leadership! A heartfelt thank you to Sherry and Anne for their years of dedicated service on the Executive. We’re excited to welcome Joanne as our new co-chair, Nancy as our Social Activities lead, and Pat, who will be assisting Roxanne with Education. Special thanks also go to Margaret for her excellent work preparing the budget.

Membership fees will increase to $75, effective January. Fees are due by January 31 but will not be accepted until January. We currently have 10 people on the waiting list, and we’d love to welcome them as soon as spots become available. If you know you won’t be renewing, please let us know so we can offer your spot to someone on the list.

Quilting on Your Home Machine
After the AGM, we dove into the fun with a hands-on session on quilting with your home machine. Roxanne brought a whiteboard which was an inspiring idea. Members enthusiastically sketched their favorite quilting patterns, sparking a lively exchange of tips and techniques.

Here are some of the great ideas shared:

• If you fall in love with home machine quilting, consider exploring thread painting!
• Use masking tape to guide straight lines.
• If you get stuck (like on a double C pattern), pause and echo stitch until you find your rhythm.
• Nervous about your stitching? Try using a busy backing fabric to help hide imperfections.
• Lay clear plastic over your quilt and draw practice lines to explore pattern possibilities.
• Practice your quilting motions by doodling because it really helps!
• For practice pieces, keep stacking new fabric layers on your quilt sandwich instead of starting fresh each time.
• Try cross-hatching to create rectangles of varying sizes.
• When working with squares, you can eyeball the lines or stitch in the ditch, then cross-hatch over them.
• Add interest with wavy lines or use your machine’s pre-programmed stitches for variety.
• Don’t forget the power of a giant spiral!
• And remember, the library is a treasure trove of quilting books.

We were inspired by several member projects that sparked ideas for future workshops, including Karen’s sweatshirt, the running shoes, and Dyanne’s beautiful collages. A special thank you to everyone who brought crumb blocks last month, and to Elizabeth for her outstanding work piecing the charity quilt using the Beaded Curtain pattern from Emily Bailey’s Crumb Quilts book. Pat also wowed us with her giant red and white cushion cover made from dreamlines strips. For those of us still working on them, Roxanne will send the following instructions soon.

You must sign up for the November 16 workshop by October 31. If not full, we will be opening it to friends. Then we have our Christmas party on Dec. 14. We will not be doing education in December. Instead we will stop for a voluntary gift exchange of something homemade at 1:00, and will share treats. The dates have been reserved for 2026 and are as follows: Jan. 25, Feb. 22, Mar 21 and 22 (retreat), April 26, May 24, June 16 (Tues), July 21 (Tues), Aug. 18 (Tues), Sept. 27, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, and Dec. 13.

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