Member Features

Hello ladies! In an attempt to get to know one another better and have fun showing each one of you off a bit, we will begin our Member Features very shortly. I have sent questionnaires to everyone on our updated email list, but there may be a few of you who have not received one. If so, please email me, Jen, at mj-and-co@hotmail.com so I may forward one to you.

Please remember to fill these out and return them to me as soon as possible. Each of you will be randomly chosen to featured here on our blog. Some of you have already filled them out and returned them to me; thank you!! I would love to have these from each and every one of our wonderful members, though, so if you have not filled yours out yet, please remember to do so before you forget. We want to hear from YOU! :)

I hope everyone is having a happy May so far!

April Meeting Recap

Thank you to everyone who came to our April meeting!  There were some really wonderful quilts that were shared this month! 

 Pam's amazing Circle of Geese Pillow 

 Lana's Fish Improv Quilt Top

Christiane's Applique Flower Quilt

Christy's mug rug 

(Really, I just love Christy's cute face in this picture. ;0) )

We all had lots of fun playing with the three Accuquilts this meeting!  I think "Accuquilt" was put down on a lot of birthday and Christmas wish lists.

Discussions

Meetings:  We have officially changed our meeting days to the first Wednesday of the month from 6-8 PM at Strawberry Patches.  There will be no meeting during May, although we will have a sew in on Saturday, May 14th.  So our next meeting will be on June 1st.

Officers:  We now have officers!  I think we have a great team going on here. ;0p

President: Terri Harlan

Vice President: Jennifer Sterk

Secretary: Megan Van Sciver

Treasurer: Nicci Pannell

Program Coordinator: Lynn Douglass

Mug Rug Swap:  We are having our first swap!  Anyone who is interested please make a mug rug with the theme of "SUMMER" in mind!  Interpret this any way you like!  Then at our next meeting on June 1st bring your mug rug in a little brown bag, and then everyone who participates will get to take one home!  Have fun and get creative!  

Name Tags:  At our next sew in we will be working on our name tags!  We thought it would be a fun way of expressing our own quilt-y styles and help us to all get to know each other better.  If you don't have a chance to come to the sew in, please feel free to make a name tag at home!  

Please send us an e-mail or leave us a comment if you have any questions!  

Happy quilting!

Next Meeting :: Accuquilt Go! Mingle

Since before we started holding meetings, after I heard about how fantastic these machines were. I knew that it would need it's own meeting for us to play around with it. Accuquilt has generously donated a machine for us all to have a Go!  If you have considered purchasing one, this will be the icing on the cake.

We will be playing with the newest model that has just been released call the Go! Baby fabric cutter. This machine is lightweight and very portable. It still does everything that the larger machine promises.

Norma has also volunteered to bring in her Studio cutter so that everyone can see the much larger version as well.

Please come down and enjoy this wonderful gift with us at our next BMQG meeting this Saturday 4/16 from 2-4pm at the NEW strawberry Patches. The new building is located directly across the parking lot from the old shop on Ming Avenue.

Supply List::

Please bring fabric to play with that you would like to use in the cutting machines.

There will be scrap option available but if you have a project in mind now is a good time for that to.

Bring a smile to ;)

We will see you there in the new Beautiful and BIGGER room at the Strawberry Patch.

Fun Day at the Sew In

Thank you to all who came out today. It was our best sew in by far. Little was accomplished but many friend were made. We all got to know each other well (maybe to well) he he

All I can say is thank you ! I apologize for the few that left early and did not make it into our photo.

Looking forward to our next get together this Saturday for our meeting,

Keep smiling quilters.

P.S. we have a new facebook page to the right you can find the link. Feel free to add your comments questions or photos at any time.
Don't forget to add yourself to the page to ;)

Sew-In Saturday

This Saturday Is our monthly Sew-In Over at the Quilt N Sew  quilt shop.

Come on down with your latest project and join us for some mingling, snacking, and sewing.

Starts at 10am and runs through 4pm

Free to join just bring something to work on.

April 9th 2011 Saturday  
Open Sewing Mingle
Location :: Quilt and Sew
3510 Allen Road #102
Bakersfield, CA 93314
(661) 589-8863

Irons and Cutting table are provided, please feel free to bring a snack to share with the group if you would like to. Looking forward to seeing what everyone is working on.

See you all on Saturday

Happy Quilting

Improv Meeting Recap

I apologize for not getting this up sooner, but I just wanted to recap the last BMQG meeting for everyone. The lesson was improv piecing, and might I say we have some pretty spectacular talent among the group. For instance our very own "mini Denyse Schmidt"  Katie; who found improv to just come natural for her at only 9 years old.  I was truly impressed.

The randomness gave everyone a little more clarity on what improv is, and how we attempt to get such randomness in our quilts. We even went as far as experimenting with color combo's that we would usually not think of. I am very excited to see what improv techniques you all will be sharing at the next meeting.

Other discussions that were talked about.

Binding Volunteers:: We still need people who are willing to demonstrate different ways to make, sew, and finish onto a quilt. Needing about three people for this still.

Strawberry Patches is moving:: Yes our regular meetings will still be held there the third Saturday of every months in the new location, just right across the parking lot. The shop opens this Thursday 4/7/2011

Logo/ Name tag challenge:: Looking for people to create ideas on both and have the group vote on what they would like to use for our new logo as well as our name tags. The logo hopefully will be Incorporated onto the name tags.

Idea Sharing:: We are looking for more ideas on what it is you would like us to do within our BMQG group. i.e. Charities, lessons, guest speaker ect.

Contact list:: We are still working the bugs outta this. We are also wanting to plan a generic contact list via email and phone numbers within the group for everyone to use in need of quilty support.

The Officers:: We discussed this a bit and it is in fact needed to move forward if you have any opinions or questions/concerns about this please email me directly. The meeting in May has been cancelled due to a holiday weekend but we will talk about this more at our next meeting in detail. This will be a very good thing for the group to designate things to do and make sure it's divided equally and not put onto one person.

Some wonderful quilts were also shown this round, thank you ladies for all the eye candy.

Looking forward to seeing everyone this Saturday at our next Sew-In over at the Quilt N Sew quilt shop located on Allen road. Everything is provided for us to use just bring your basic  project stuff and we will do the rest. Here is a list of what you might need.

Quilt project/ or other project

Sewing machine (don;t forget the cord)

Scissors

Rotary cutter

Thread

Snacks if you wish

Please visit this link here for address MEETINGS

Have a great week everyone, we will see you Saturday

BMQG Meeting - Introduction to Improv

Image from Jaquie @ http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/

Randomness, is not always easy. The most interesting part about the modern quilting movement is the randomness seen in many improv quilts. Starting a quilt with little or no plan of action and letting it take you away is a skill people share because it brings out utter creativity within a quilter.

This Saturday we will have an introduction to improvisational quilting. A simple technique that once learned you will love it. This is also a great way to use scraps for all you scrap busting quilters out there.

No supplies are needed for this meeting except your smiles and willingness to think outside of the box. We look forward to sharing this part of quilting with the BMQG group.

March 19th 2011 Saturday 2pm - 4pm
Learning Improv Techniques

Location :: Strawberry Patches

6439 Ming Ave # C

Bakersfield, CA 93309-6713

(661) 835-1738

Image from Elizabeth at Oh Fransson

There will also be a discussion of officers at this get together. Please attend if you can it will be a very important meeting and we would love to have everyone attend.

See you all there.