2014 NILAG Board

President  - Marla Margelewski  marlangreg@ameritech.net

2nd Vice President/Programs - Kin Hum    kkh595@comcast.net

Membership - Teresa

Treasurer - Sandy

Secretary - Marlene

Name Tags - Debbie Long   dlmarch5@att.net

Yahoo/Blog Coordinator - Debbie Weber   dweber2009@comcast.net

Oct meeting and workshop information

SCHEDULE UPDATE !!

Due to family obligations the dates of our October Speaker's workshops have been changed. 

Please see the new schedule below.

Oct 4, 2014  Regular meeting at the PNC Bank, 250 E Roosevelt Rd, Wheaton IL. 

Zentangle Skill Builder workshop on fabric.  The guild had Sue Jacobs teach a Zentangle ornament last year.  Now is the time to transfer that skill to fabric.  During the Oct meeting, each member should bring  a 20 by 20 inch piece of fabric and a marking tool that works for that fabric. (blue wash out fabric, chalk pencil, etc.) Students will draw curvy lines directly onto their fabric, the resulting areas can be filled with Zentangle doodle, or any other type of quilting fill stitches.  It is suggested that you practice a few Zentalge designs on paper first. So additional supplies would be a pen, paper, maybe some a ruler or a curved ruler  or a compass. Members will take their fabric home to quilt and bring it back to the December meeting for show and tell.   For additional inspiration please see Sue Jacobs web site http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/  and Marla's show and tell from the June 2014 Meeting.

Remember to bring the results of the coloring page skill builder,

Join us for 4 workshops Oct 25th and Oct 26 2014 with Linda Thielfoldt http://www.thequiltedgoose.com/

Linda is has won many blue ribbons at national shows for her machine quilting artistry and wearable art. (Paducah, MQX, MQS, Lowell Quilt, HMQS just to name a few) Her machine quilting skills are in demand by quilters from all over the United States. She has been teaching quilting for over 15 years and loves to share her knowledge in a fun, lively, no-rules style that will provide inspiration and new ideas.

LOCATION:  Holiday Inn, 150 S Gary Ave, Carol Stream, IL (630-665-3000)
We have a block of rooms set aside for those that would like to stay overnight. Please contact the hotel directly to make your reservation.

Oct 25 a.m. 9:30 – 12:30  Batting, Thread & Needles ~ Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Lecture class  The top is complete, you have an idea as to the type of quilting but now you have to choose the batting, the thread and oh yeah, those needles! How do you decide which combination is the best for your project?  In this class you will see firsthand the results of Linda's batting testing project, where she tested nearly 100 different kinds/types of batting. Learn how to choose the best batting for wall quilts, snuggly quilts, bed quilts and how the battings can impact all of your quilts.

Thread, a major component of every quilt! Learn how to choose the right one and the one that works well in your machine AND does not cause tension headaches! Linda shares her time tested process for navigating the often difficult thread and tension situation and shares her secrets that garner her "excellent tension" remarks and scores on her award winning quilts in shows across the country.

Needles, how to choose the proper needle for your project and the different types available and why they matter are covered in this class. You will never look at batting, thread and needles the same way after this class.  FREE to paid NILAG members, $40 for non members

Oct 25 p.m. 1:30 – 4:00  Borders Bonanza – Lecture class
This class will take you through a bevy of border techniques you can add to your quilting repertoire. Wish you knew an easy way to evenly space motifs in borders? Not sure how to adjust to make a design fit the corners? Stumped on how to make borders look good without taking hours and hours to complete them? Want to jazz up your quilting with some new ideas? If so, this class is for you. Don't miss this opportunity to learn a bevy of beautiful borders and corners! 

Drawing paper and pencil with eraser supplied with class fee. Bring standard office ruler (helpful but not required).  $30 to NILAG members, $40 to non members

WORKING LUNCH $15 offered by Holiday Inn (optional)  Please be aware that the hotel does not allow any outside food or drink in the meeting rooms or hallway. There are no other eating establishments nearby that will work in the short lunch period. The working lunch  will be an assortment of sandwiches, homemade seasoned potato chips, and a fresh-baked cookie.

Oct 26 a.m. 9:30 – 11:30  Fearless Feathers Fun - Drawing Class

Feathers, feathers, feathers!  The time honored quilting motif that is appropriate for many quilts.  Join in this class and learn to execute feathers freehand. Feathers in borders, sashing, blocks and yes, even backgrounds are all covered in this lively and inspiring lecture class. If you have never done a feather on any quilt or perhaps are not happy with your feathers or maybe you are just looking to get a better grasp on the technique, this class is the perfect place to learn to be fearless with your feathers. If so, this class is for you! In this class you will learn to draw different styles of feathers, as well as how to space and size them properly to fit your quilt.

This class will take the student through all the steps necessary to be fearless with those feathers.  Using some time-tested techniques and tricks Linda will help take the fear out of feathers. Get an up close look at some of Linda's "just for fun quilts" and get ready for some inspiration!

Drawing paper and pencil with eraser supplied with class fee.  $30 to NILAG members, $40 to non members.

WORKING LUNCH $15 offered by Holiday Inn (optional)  Please be aware that the hotel does not allow any outside food or drink in the meeting rooms or hallway. There are no other eating establishments nearby that will work in the short lunch period. The working lunch  will be an assortment of sandwiches, homemade seasoned potato chips, and a fresh-baked cookie.

Oct 26 p.m.12:30 – 3:00  More Fearless Feathers - Drawing Class  You have taken Linda's Fearless Feather Fun class or you have been doing feather work on your own and you are looking to kick things up a notch! In this class you will learn some different styles of feathers and many creative ways to execute them. Are you looking to improve your feathers or the time it takes you to put them on a custom quilt? Not sure how to draw a feather design to fit a specific shape on your quilt - let Linda show you how she designs custom feathers for any quilt.

This class will take the student through all the steps necessary to be even more fearless with those feathers. Using some time-tested techniques and tricks Linda will help take the fear out of feathers. She will have lots of award winning quilts for an up close and personal look at her feathers. 

Drawing paper and pencil with eraser supplied with class fee. $30 to NILAG members, $40 to non-members.

A registration form is REQUIRED for all classes.  

CLICK HERE to download form

You can turn in your registration and check at the August meeting

or -- you can use the U.S. Postal service and mail it to the P.O Box on the form.

Registration for guild members (in good standing as of July 1, 2014) is open now.

Registration for non guild members opens after August 17th, 2014

The deadline for registration is Oct 11, 2014

Cancelation can be made up to Oct 11, 2014

Please contact our program chair Kin if you have questions-  kkh595@gmail.com

Please tell your friends and we hope to see you at the workshops.

SCHEDULE UPDATE !!!

August 2, 2014 - Cindy Roth - founder of Longarm University  http://www.longarmuniversity.com/

MORNING Drawing class with handout at our regular meeting location. The Continuous Curve Quilting technique can enhance the piecework of your quilts.  By stitching gently shaped arcs around the pieced shapes in your block you have a quick and easy way to give the illusion of outline quilting to your quilts with minimal starts and stops. Cindy will show you how this is a quick and easy free-hand technique that can be used on almost any pieced block. We will begin our adventure by diagramming the continuous curve stitching pattern on basic pieced blocks such as the 9-Patch, Ohio Star and Flying Geese blocks and work our way to more complex patterns as the Tree of Life and Dresden Plate. If time allows, stitching diagrams for the Double Irish Chain, Tumbling Blocks and Double Wedding Ring patterns will be shown. You will also learn how to combine the Continuous Curve technique with basic free hand patterns to make more efficient use of your quilting time. This class is free for paid guild members only.

TIME/LOCATION: 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM  PNC Bank, 250 E Roosevelt Rd, Wheaton, IL, lower level meeting room. Members must park in the lower level parking lot.  In order to allow the speaker as much time as possible for her presentation and product demos, we are asking members to hold off on showing their coloring page skill builders. Please save your coloring page skill builder and bring it to the October meeting.

AFTERNOON There will be a special afternoon class, (after lunch) 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
The Business of Machine quilting. This class is being held in a members home. It is for paid NILAG members only and is limited to 25 students. Cost of the afternoon class is to be paid directly to Cindy. Please contact Kin at kkh595@comcast.net to register for the afternoon class.

June 2014 Meeting

We had a great meeting June 7th, with lots of great show and tell.
The first few are from the Mini Whole Cloth Skill Builder Assignment.

Then the next few are from the "do something" Skill builder

The next photos are just some of the outstanding show and tell presented at the June 2014 meeting.

Guild members can see the rest of the show and tell on the Yahoo group.

To help meet the guild's mission statement, we are continuing with our skill builder assignments.  For the August 2014 meeting the Skill Builder will be quilt a "coloring book page".  You can use any coloring page, a coloring book you have at home, or can borrow from a family member or from an on-line coloring page source.  You can use the page in any way you want. You can paint it, you can appliqué it, or you can actually color it with crayons.  Then embellish and quilt it with your longarm .  There is no size requirement but you can keep the size to around a fat quarter to make the assignment more "do-able". 

Here is an example of Marla's "mug rug" coloring book page.

Our guest speaker for June 7th 2014 was AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser - Chris Moline.  Chris brought many wonderful quilts from her personal collection.  We learned what works on a quilt and what doesn't.  She shared what judges look for, on an award winning quilt and what can eliminate a quilt from competition. Chris encouraged us to quilt those unfinished, vintage tops with an emphasis on workmanship.

You can see more of Chris' quilts in a bed turning video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6CR9D7oCoY

Chris was also featured in this short video on repairing old quilts presented by AQS  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeZ5rbGIkn4

If you would like a quilt appraised, please contact Chris at  chrismoline@att.net 

PROGRAM UPDATES FOR 2014

June 7th 2014 - You be the Judge with local AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser - Chris Moline.  As an AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser, Chris will take you through what appraisers look for and what judges look for. With a special emphasis on the quilting, she will help you to identify ways where quilting, as well as other aspects of quilt making, can make or break a quilt. She will also explain when and how to quilt those antique blocks and tops and when to leave them alone. You get to participate in expressing your opinions too! Chris will be bringing her stash of beautiful quilts to emphasize her concepts. This program will be held at PNC Bank, 250 E Roosevelt Rd.,  Wheaton, Illinois. starting at 9:30 A.M. Please park in the the lower lot.

Bring pen and paper to take notes. You will have six months to apply her concepts to your own quilts. In Dec, you can bring back your quilts (or someone else's quilts!) and Chris will provide feedback on what works and what you can improve on.

 Please remember to bring your SKILL BUILDER.. "Do something" on a fat quarter and any show and tell that you have. Any member with skill builder show and tell has the opportunity to have her name entered into the door prize basket.

________________________________________________________________________

The August 2nd, 2014 meeting brings Cindy Roth to NILAG. Cindy will give a lecture and drawing class on CONTINIOUS CURVES.  Cindy will demonstrate quilting solutions for simple blocks up to more complex designs like Wedding Ring, Jacobs Ladder and 3-D blocks. We will learn how to incorporate the background fill as we stitch the block designs. Cindy will also discuss thread, needles and her rulers. 

Cindy is a nationally known longarm instructor from Kent Washington and the director of Longarm University   http://www.longarmuniversity.com/index.htm   The CONTINIOUS CURVES class will be held at our regular meeting place.  PNC Bank, 250 E Roosevelt Rd.,  Wheaton, Illinois. This class is open (at no charge) to paid NILAG members. NILAG members can sign up at the June meeting or RSVP to the Yahoo group. Class room and parking space is limited, so we will not be offering any guest spots.  There will be an exception for the members of the Lakeshore Longarm Quilters. They can attend for a cost of $15.  The Lakeshore Longarm Quilters are required to RSVP to debquilts1@comcast.net

In the afternoon Cindy is sponsoring a 2nd class. Quilting as a Business. Join Cindy as she explains how to figure out exactly how much it costs YOU to quilt each quilt you put on your machine. You will also learn the different between "cash in your hand" and cash flow. This class does not tell you what to charge, instead it gives you the tools so you will know what you need to charge to cover your costs and make a profit! Marketing and business tips will also be discussed. A question and answer period is included and many diverse business topics will be talked about.

Quilting as a Business will be  held at the home of one of our guild members that is not far the morning class. This class is limited to 20 to 30 longarm quilters.  The time of the class is 2:30 to 5 pm (allowing for lunch in between meetings). The cost of this class is $25 (cash or check only)  to be paid directly to the speaker.   Any member of  NILAG or the Lakeshore Longarm Quilters that would like to attend can reserve their spot and are required to RSVP to kkh595@comcast.net .  

April NILAG Meeting

We had a great meeting April 5th.  No snow, no rain  Yeah!

Marla shared the boards' emergency plan, so that if there is a future meeting cancelation, it will go smoothly.  Members  should look for a document on this from the Yahoo group later this week.

Rita, our Quilts of Valor Regional representative announced that QoV  would be delivering their 100,000th quilt sometime this year. Rita said this would not be possible without the support of the NILAG quilters and wanted to be sure we knew how much our participation was appreciated.   I have added a link on NILAG's blog back to Rita's blog where you can see some of these wonderful quilts and contact her about quilting for QoV .  http://lolqov.blogspot.com/

We will continue with our bi-monthly skill builders.  We had two examples of the Mini-Whole cloth skill builder.

 

The door prize basket was unveiled.  We had a nice assortment of items, marking tools, rulers, stencils, scissors, tote bags and thread, just to name a few.  At the April meeting we allowed all members to enter the drawing.  Our first winner was Terri H.  Going forward, the door prize drawing will be for members that bring show and tell of the current skill builder.  The skill builder for the June meeting is  "DO SOMETHING" on a fat quarter. Basically just choose any fat quarter and select a quilting  tool, motif, method, design, etc., and get it quilted. We really want to see more participation on this.  All levels of quilting are encouraged to participate.  Remember we were all beginners once.  We love to see what inspires you.

We had some addition show and tell

 

 

 

Our guest speaker for the April 2014 meeting was Cheryl Sleboda.  Cheryl is a fiber artist who loves to manipulate fabric and also light up her work with electronics. Cheryl took us along with her on her quilting journey.  We saw photos of more than 200 mini quilts from her “Working Weekly – Staying Inspired” self challenges.  We saw how her design style grew and her artistic voice developed.  We also learned all about Electronics and textiles.  We fell in love with her cartoon minis and were amazed by her  "light up" quilts.

You can see Cheryl's work on her web site http://muppin.com/wordpress/  There are links to her blog that will keep you updated on what is next for Cheryl  aka, a television star on Quilting Arts and links to purchase some of the LED light kits.

Our president Marla, is doing a wonderful job of getting us inspired to "DO SOMETHING". So get in your studio, load that fat quarter and quilt.   It does not have to be bound and ready for a show.  Just quilted..

PROGRAM UPDATE  For the April 5, 2014 meeting, NILAG will host  Cheryl Sleboda,

Cheryl Sleboda, is a modern quilter  and fiber artist.  Cheryl will share her journey towards becoming an artistic quilter by creating small quilts with big detail.  Find out how working weekly and working small can help you define your artistic vision and make you a better quilter. You’ll be able see the quilts from small to “actual size.”

And, to help us stretch as artists, Cheryl will teach the basics of e-textiles and explain how easy it is to include cutting edge soft circuit technology in your quilts, as well as show you some of her amazing e-textile quilts  Be prepared to take notes. www.muppin.com  

Bring your completed Mini-Whole Cloth Skill Builders for show and tell. Anyone that brings their skill builder to the meeting will have the opportunity to select a door prize.

FEB 1, 2014 MEETING CANCELED

Due to the weather forecast, 8 inches of accumulated snow for the Wheaton area, the Feb 1st NILAG Meeting has been CANCELED.  We apologize if this causes anyone problems.  You can register your email to FOLLOW the news posted to this site. (See the link in the right border)  

2014 Program Schedule

CANCELED     CANCELED    CANCELED !!!!

February 1, 2014 - You be the Judge with local AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser - Chris Moline

As an AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser, Chris Moline will take you through what appraisers look for and what judges look for. With a special emphasis on the quilting, she will help you to identify ways where quilting, as well as other aspects of quilt making, can make or break a quilt. She will also explain when and how to quilt those antique blocks and tops and when to leave them alone. You get to participate in expressing your opinions too! Chris will be bringing her stash of beautiful quilts to emphasize her concepts.

Bring pen and paper to take notes. You will have all year to apply her concepts to your own quilts. In Dec, you can bring back your quilts (or someone else's quilts!) and Chris will provide feedback on what works and what you can improve on.

Skill Builder homework was to quilt the mini whole cloth started at the Dec 2013 meeting.

 

April 5, 2014 - PROGRAM CHANGE  Cheryl Sleboda  - Find out how working weekly and working small can help you define your artistic vision and make you a better quilter. Cheryl Sleboda, fiber artist and quilter (www.muppin.com) will share her journey towards becoming an artistic quilter by creating small quilts with big detail. You’ll be able see the quilts from small to “actual size.”

And, to help us stretch as artists, Cheryl will teach the basics of e-textiles and explain how easy it is to include cutting edge soft circuit technology in your quilts, as well as show you some of her amazing e-textile quilts!

June 7, 2014 - Chris Moline *****RESCHEDULED from Feb****

August 2, 2014 - TBD

October 4, 2014 - Cindy Roth - founder of Longarm University (program TBD) 

December 6, 2014 - Quilt Critique with local expert Judge - Chris Moline

Bring a quilt for a grand show and tell moderated by Chris Moline. Chris will provide a "critique" on areas that will help you identify what you are doing right and how you might improve. Don't worry, you can be anonymous if you like! But here is your chance to learn from your work and the work of others.

 

 

 

December 2013 meeting

We had a full house at the Dec 2013 meeting. We started with always great show and tell. At the previous meeting we were given a new Skill Building Assignment - TOOLS.  Members were asked to practice using one of the tools they purchased but had not used.  Show and tell included samples from the Gammill Workstation, Quilter's Rule Flower template, the curved side of Linda Taylor's Applique helper. Marla used Jamie Wallen's Mystical Ditcher, she drew her design onto water soluble stabilizer with  water soluble Crayola markers and stitched through the stabilizer. Then removed the stabilizer with water. The markers were okay on the black whole cloth but the ink transferred to the fabric on the white sample.

 

The program for the Dec meeting was a mini-whole cloth design assignment.  The guild provided "gridded flip-chart" paper for drawing.  The members brought rulers and  pencils.  There was a huge number  of  stencils, and longarm templates that were shared for creating the whole cloth designs.  Members folded their paper and worked on quadrants. The hope is that quilted minis will be shown at the February 2014 meeting.

To encourage participation in the skill building assignments, they board has decided  to obtain items that can be used for door prize drawings. Tools, thread, patterns, batting etc.  Any member that shows a quilted skill building mini, will have their name added to a basket for a door prize drawing.  So please bring your quilted skill builders to the February meeting.

REMINDER: The 2014 Membership fee of $25 is now due.  If you did not pay at the December meeting, please bring your renewal to the Feb meeting.  If you cannot make the Feb meeting, please mail your dues to the membership chair.