December Meeting - by Barbara
On a mild damp evening we gathered for the final meeting of the year, at last a whole year of in-person meetings. Oh, except for July of course when it was Too Hot To Meet! Can that possibly be true??
For this meeting we had been advised to wrap up warm as the heating wasn’t working, temporary arrangements were in place and with our thick sweaters, scarves and fleeces we all coped perfectly well.
Claire opened the meeting with none of the usual notices, but sadly advised us of the death of former member Margaret Penn, condolences to those who knew her.
The group had received a nice Christmas note from Project Linus, thanking us for the large number of donations they had received during the year.
The Kate Finlay workshop places are all filled.
The next part of our evening was spent playing Quilting bingo – congratulations to Ann, Erica and Caroline who won prizes and to Claire for organising and calling the many, and sometimes odd, bingo names. Tea, coffee and Christmas treats followed, thanks to Debbie, Jenny B and Susan, and we had a chance to look at a very well stocked ingredients table and make the odd purchase to keep us going over the festive season.
Refreshed we returned to party games and Pass the Parcel. In this case the parcel was a delightfully folded and tied piece of fabric which we were warned not to become attached too! Following Claire’s reading we passed our fabrics to left and right and at the end my beach huts had become ditsy floral. The mystery of the fabric will be revealed in January when next year’s challenges are announced. Pass the Parcel with chocolates was more confusing, a false start when certain members ate their chocs before the game began was followed by instructions where we had to do the opposite, left means right and right means left. Good fun and only wrappers left at the end.
Finally show and tell: Karen had some seasonal cushion covers she had made for Christmas presents; Helen T had made the November baubles using much larger polystyrene balls that looked really good; Jenny B bought along a small quilt she had used to practice using a frame, that she had bought at the Alexandra Palace show, to assist with free motion quilting. The results were impressive and the process intriguing.
Claire concluded the meeting with her traditional reading of the Night Before Christmas.
Happy New Year to Everyone.
December Meeting – by Eileen
Thankfully the snow had all disappeared and the temperature risen in time for us to hold our December meeting.
The evening had a real buzz to it, with members wearing various Christmas jumpers, hats and earrings. Claire started the evening with the notices followed by a game. We had four large tables with members seated around, there was a lot of chatting and laughter – then we started to play the “Quilting” bingo. First a line and then another line, I don’t think anyone managed a “Full House”. There was even a prize for the member who had the most spaces on her card still unfilled.
We then stopped for refreshments, thanks to Jo for arranging some lovely “Christmas eats” to accompany our tea.
The chairs were arranged into a large circle and a bag from The Little Shop of Fabrics was passed around for each member to take a piece of fabric, lovingly tied into a square with ribbon, thank you to Kate for arranging this. “You won’t end up with what you pick” was the message from Claire, who then proceeded to read the “Left and Right” game, so the fabrics were passed this way and that, with a lot of laughter and some members having more than one piece as people became a little confused, good fun and lots of laughs. Those pieces of fabrics will form part of one of the Challenges in the New Year, so be sure it doesn’t get lost.
The meeting was very relaxed and it gave the new members a good chance of chatting and getting to know people better. Ann De thanked the Committee for all have they have done during the year.
9.30 p.m. soon came, it was time to leave, wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and looking forward to seeing them at the January meeting when the new programme will be given out and discussed. The programme will be on the website in the New Year.
A local primary school benefits from bags of "scraps" - all those little pieces left over or cut off. The children in the nursery have made these Christmas cards.
