2024 AGM - Chair's Report

2023/24 has been another busy and successful year for our group. As ever, we have continued to draw on the talents of our members, starting after the last AGM with three members (Caroline L, Nicky F and Helen T) giving us an insight into their quilting lives.

Members continued to share their skills and experience. In February Kate E, Deirdre, Jenny and Chrissie led demonstrations on the possibilities of disappearing blocks to inspire everyone with one of the 2024 challenges – a disappearing block quilt using colours that match our initials. In April we all shared a huge variety of ideas for Tombola makes, which promises to make the Tombola at our upcoming exhibition a great display.

Members have also led evenings where we enjoy “making”. Last October Eileen helped everyone make Christmas tree decorations from hexagons, and in February Kate E led a Saturday workshop to make an ingenious Sew-Together” bag and vanquish any fears of zips! We were all very pleased with the results. By last August we were in need of a sit and sew evening to concentrate on our sewing, have a cup of tea and a chat with friends.

We realised this social side of our group and the sharing of skills were some of the things we most valued about Shirley Quilters when we took some time to think about what we enjoyed and what we would like to see in the future. We enjoy workshops and time and space to get on with our projects, so hope to have more of this is the future.

We have also had some visitors. In September, Emma from Creative Quilting came to talk to us about her experiences running a quilt shop and tips to make our quilting lives easier.

Last July Lee Brown returned after a number of years to speak (or have a chat, as she put it) about “Life in the Quilt Lanes”. She showed us the huge variety of quilts she had made over the years, including her prize winning quilt where you felt you could step into the ancient building depicted.

This March Gilly Towell from Gilly Mac Designs demonstrated different approaches to quilting including quilting with rulers, a new approach for many of us. Gilly will be returning in a few weeks to lead a Saturday workshop.

More recently we held a Linus sewing evening to assemble quilts from the rail fence blocks members had made, continuing our tradition of making for charity. In 2023 we made and donated to Linus, Demelza and for Prem babies:

·   225 Quilts

·   24 Christmas Stockings with quilts

·   209 Levi Bears

·   30 pairs of bonding squares, and

·   212 knitted items

We also donated £200 to breast cancer charities following our  “wear it pink” evening in October 2023.

These charity makes and many of the year’s efforts were on display at our Mini-Exhibition in November when friends and family were able to come to see what we have been up to. On display were:

·       inventive responses to the 2023 Playing Card challenge where members made a small, quilted item based on a card chosen at random

·     bags and rugs resulting from a Jelly Roll Workshop back in Feb 2023-though judging by the number of “never again” comments members won’t be making many more

·       results of our Block of the Month challenge showing just how different the “same” quilt can be

·       woodland, fabric confetti pictures resulting from the Kate Findlay workshop held in Feb 2023

·       a huge display of our charity works including the postage stamp quilts which were the Linus block challenge for 2023.

 A busy, lively and enjoyable evening!