Shannon Lanning
At our October general meeting, in lieu of an outside speaker, guild members Jean Hedberg and Viki Reed shared their talents with our membership. And talented they are! First up, Viki presented a selection of rope bowls, coasters, and decorative rope plates she created. She described the processes for hand-dyeing the rope, fabric wrapping, adding handles, and creating a decorative coil to cover the rope ends. In past years, Viki has taught rope bowl making classes to our members and donated bowls to Agave boutique fundraising sales. They make wonderful, one-of-a-kind gift items.
Jean presented her techniques for machine embroidering designs onto rope bowls, followed by a Show & Tell of her stunning, machine-embroidered and framed tile scene artworks. Each one requires hours of machine stitching for each section of the tile scene, as well as miles and miles of thread. After all of the tile sections are stitched, they get sewn together just like you would a quilt. They produce the most intricate pieces of art you can imagine. She also showed her Halloween quilt, which is made up of block sections with machine-embroidered designs. Jean coordinates our Machine Embroidery Friendship Group, which meets monthly, along with members of the Sew-N-Sews group, in our Oakwood Sewing Room.
We are excited to announce new educational classes and activities for our members. In October, we started a 12-month Mystery Block of the Month quilt class. This series will run monthly through next April, with participants completing two blocks during each class session. Instructions for the final layout of the quilt assembly will be available at our May meeting. It’s not too late to sign up at the Education Table.
In addition, a one-day Jelly Roll Race quilt class is scheduled in November, offering members a fun and fast-paced quilting experience. The quilts finish at about 50 by 65 inches and are fast and easy to quilt. This quilt is a great scrap buster!
Sign-ups for a new AccuQuilt Friendship Group started in October. We hope to offer AccuQuilt classes as well. All of these opportunities are designed to foster creativity, learning, and camaraderie among our guild members.
We welcomed three new members in October! Agave Quilters Guild welcomes new members of all skill levels. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month, September through May, at 1 p.m. in the Navajo Room at Sun Lakes Country Club, 25601 S. Sun Lakes Blvd., Sun Lakes. Annual dues (January through December) are $25, with a one-time $15 purchase of an Agave name badge. Wearing your name badge allows you to participate in our door prize drawings at meetings and helps members get to know you better. Please join us as a guest at up to two meetings before deciding to join. We would love to have you as a new member! Visit agavequiltersguild.com for more information. We look forward to seeing everyone and welcoming back our snowbirds at our November meeting!