Betsy Muir, President, and the Board of the Big Red Quilters Guild wanted to let you know that our April and May meetings and activities are cancelled due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.  This includes the Tiled Backgrounds workshop scheduled for Tuesday, April 28.  The Board will make a decision regarding future meetings in early May based on public health guidance.

• If you’d like to look forward, we are hopeful that June 15 will bring us together for a meeting with speaker Denniele Bohannon (Where The Poppies Grow) presenting a program, “Forty Years in the Making.”
• We will advise on spring program and workshop rescheduling at a later date.

In the meantime, continue to reach out and connect with your fellow quilters from a distance!  While we don’t have opportunities to gather in-person, every contact you make means so much!  At the same time that we reach out to each other, know that any sewing that you might be doing for the Coronavirus crisis, (masks and scrub caps, gowns … more masks) is making a difference!

• If you are sewing for the crisis, it might be interesting to keep track of numbers of items you make.  We’ll put out a call for numbers when things calm down and make a total for the Guild.
• If you are interested in sewing for the cause, there is a Facebook Group, West Michigan OSMS – COVID-19 Open Source Medical Supplies, which is helping connect the talents of makers with requests from hospitals and nursing homes, including Spectrum and Holland hospitals.  They are presently seeking individuals to sew masks, surgical scrub caps and gowns.  On their Facebook page, volunteers are asked to complete a form including how can you help.  If sewing, you are asked:  what you are interested in sewing, whether you need materials, whether you would be interested in pick up or delivery of materials or products.  After completing the form, patterns and instructions are available as well as drop-off locations and delivery information.
  • The Facebook group is pretty active, so it creates the atmosphere of working together!  While not the same as a retreat or Sew-In, it definitely helps to create a feeling of community.

Know that we’re missing you all…the camaraderie, the learning, the fun…but that we will all benefit from Staying Home and Staying Safe!

Take care!

Bridget Morel

The times are uncertain…looking for “what’s next” is a daily (or hourly!) event.  Never have we found ourselves with so much “discretionary” time!  Or at least it may feel like that…or it may not…this experience is different for everyone, I suspect!  

The purpose of this email is to send along the next steps of the BOEOM Challenge so you can take advantage of the time you might have, whenever you have it. IMPORTANT NOTE:  Even though we might be able to work ahead, completed blocks and final project end date remains the same as originally planned–October.

Attached, please find the instructions for the two remaining blocks as well as photographs of Betsy’s blocks.  We’ll get these up on the website soon as well!  I’ll also include the links for these online just to make sure everyone has access (we don’t need any additional technical issues, do we?  )

Sending hugs to you all…the virtual kind…along with prayers for everyone’s health and safety.  Take care…more to come soon!

Bridget

Links to blocks:

• https://bearcreekquiltingcompany.storage.googleapis.com/uploads/2018/06/06/files/bh2_lh_stellar-star_1.pdf
• https://bearcreekquiltingcompany.storage.googleapis.com/uploads/2018/06/27/files/bh2_bh_roman-cross_mjdDnFp.pdf

Link to the BRQG Challenge are on the Guild’s website:

• https://bigredquiltersguild.org/block-of-every-other-month-guild-challenge/

I hope that this email finds you and yours doing well in these trying times.  I’m writing to let you know of an opportunity to share our energies with the larger West Michigan community.  I suspect you’ve heard about making masks to help in the fight against the COVID-19, and you may already be working on this cause for a local hospital or other caregiving entity.

Both Holland Hospital and Spectrum Health are accepting handmade masks, per information offered on their websites.  We would invite you to consider this opportunity as a chance to contribute to the cause (and possibly make a dent in that stash… ).

Note that fabrics should be pre-washed before assembly, as we are uncertain how the masks will be sterilized/sanitized for use (read:  it likely will include moisture and heat!)  Following is information from each hospital organization, including the link to their “how-to-help” page for COVID-19 as well as a link to the instructions for their preferred pattern.

• Holland Hospital:
  • requesting masks  https://www.hollandhospital.org/hh/covid-19-donations.aspx
  • directions https://www.hollandhospital.org/uploads/public/documents/face-mask-instructions.pdf

• Spectrum Health:
  • requesting masks https://www.spectrumhealth.org/covid19/giving-opportunities,
  • directions in a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJcE-r7kcg?

A closing thought as we consider the days and weeks ahead…and the uncertainty in all of this:  how blessed we are to have a hobby that consumes us, a hobby that we can share with others, and a hobby that produces articles that are at once beautiful and useful.  We can express ourselves and connect with the recipient or admirer alike.  It’s a gift to have quilting in our lives always, but maybe, especially, in times of challenge.  First Lady Grace Coolidge is credited with the below saying…if you haven’t seen it, perhaps it will nudge you to appreciate quilting just a bit more!

“Everyone should be taught to
sew, not merely for the sake of
making something, but as an
accomplishment which may prove
a stabilizer in time of
perplexity or distress.

Many a time when I need to hold
myself firmly, I have taken up a
needle – a sewing needle, some
knitting needles, or a crochet
hook. Whatever its form or
purpose, it often proved to

be as the needle
of a compass,
keeping me to the course.”

– First Lady Grace Coolidge

 

Sending our very best for your comfort and productivity (!) in the days ahead.  We’re thinking of you!

Bridget Morel

—

Hoping life is keeping you in stitches!

Bridget

Sew-In January 20, 2020.  We’re kicking off 2020 with a Guild Sew-In Monday, January 20, 6:30 pm at the Beechwood Church Lodge!

• Bring your own project, hand or machine, or work on preparing quilt kits for charity.
  • Our Charity Quilts committee will have patterns and materials (freshly sorted and updated!) available.
• Vicki Potgeter from Project Linus will tell us more about this program, beginning at 7 pm.
  • The Guild will be working with Project Linus to bring quilts to seriously ill and traumatized children, ages 0-18 years.  All types of blankets are welcome:  quilts, tied comforters, fleece blankets, crochet or knitted afghans and receiving blankets.
  • For Children:  36” x 36” to 40” x 40″
  • For Teens:  40” x 60” and 60” x 70”
• We will continue to work with Manasseh Project through Wedgewood Christian Services to aid the rescued teens from human trafficking.  20 to 25 quilts needed per year.
  • Size:  48” x 60” (or larger).

February 17 meeting information.  On Monday, February 17, we will meet in the Great Room at Beechwood Church for refreshments at 6:30 followed by our program, “Artists Among Us”.  This program features quilters from our Guild who will share a selection of their quilts and the stories behind them!  It promises to be an engaging and inspiring program, and gives us the chance to get to know each other better!

March meeting information – On Monday, March 23, we will again meet in the Great Room at Beechwood Church for a program featuring Deborah Richmond, with a lecture, “Best Quilters’ Tools and Gadgets”.  Deborah runs the Quilted Turtle online quilt shop, personally testing and approving each product included in the shop, relying on her 30 years of quilting experience to share tools designed to make your quilting easier and faster!  This program should be a thought starter as we all try to make the most of every quilting moment!

BRQG Quilt Retreat info, March 24-26. – To continue a week of All-Things-Quilt, the Guild retreat will be held at Tiara Yachts Corporate Center March 24-26, 2020.  There are three spaces left for those who are hand sewing.  Please email barb.bredemeier@gmail.com if you would like one of these hand sewing spots or want to be placed on the retreat waiting list for machine sewers.

Tiled Backgrounds Workshop, April 28.  Spaces are available!  We will have registration available for the class, “Tiled Backgrounds Gloria Loughman Style”  scheduled for April 28, 10-4 pm.  Barb Bredemeier and Janet Haines will lead this workshop.  For more information, visit https://bigredquiltersguildorg.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/tiled-background-class-brqg-april-2020.pdf

Inclement weather reminder – If West Ottawa schools are closed for inclement weather during the winter months, all activities at Beechwood Church are cancelled.

NOTE:  You can help yourself to a full bolt of great information at our website, https://bigredquiltersguild.org !  You’ll find Guild news and information.  You will need the password for the Members page (which includes our membership list and contact information).  That Password is brqgmembers.

We look forward to seeing everyone soon!

Bridget Morel