Bloomington Quilters Guild
at a glance: May 2025

OUR Next MEETING is ON Tuesday, May 6, 2025.

Time: 6:00 PM Social Hour
6:30 pm Meeting start

PROGRAM: Lisa Dodson: Fiber Art Creativity.
SHOW and TELL
Location: BETH SHALOM 3750 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47401


May Meeting

On May 6th, our very own Lisa Dodson will present “Fiber Art Creativity.”  She will highlight her beautiful art work and tell her story.  The next day, May 7th, her workshop will teach us how to work with a variety of fabrics, colors, textures and papers to fuse them onto your chosen background for a visual composition, later finished with quilting.  Lisa was the featured artist at IHQS in the recent past.  See her facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/LisaLovesToQuilt

Mixed Media Fabric Workshop

This ½ day workshop will consist of designing and creating visual compositions by fusing different types of materials onto your chosen background that can then be quilted into a finished item.  

You’ll be working with a variety of fabrics, colors, textures and papers that are merged together to form a very interesting and unique image.

These results can be used to develop numerous personal projects including journal covers, wall hangings, bags, pillows and postcards. 

A short tutorial will be presented on the key elements of design such as line, color, shape, texture and space. 

Many of the materials and tools will be provided. Patterns to trace and fuse will be available at the workshop however participants are encouraged to use their own design ideas if desired.  

No need to bring a sewing machine for these first steps. 

This workshop will give you the tools and techniques to create confidently. 

• Date: May 7, 2025

• Time: 9:00 am -11:30 am

• Location: St Marks Methodist Church Room 1

• Materials to bring: See Materials List.

• Cost: $35 per person

Thanks
Lisa Dodson
Lisalovestoquilt@ymail.com

Register for Lisa Dodson Workshop

May SEW DAY

Sew Day Saturday May 10, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm. St. Mark's United Methodist Church. This is your chance for a "mini retreat" with friends or to finish up projects for IHQS. Come meet new people and get inspired! Bring your lunch and a $5 donation to the church. Come when you can and stay as long as you like.

June Meeting

Our final meeting of the quilt year is in June.  During this meeting we elect officers for the next year, draw the winning ticket for the Raffle Quilt, and choose the winner of our Annual Quilt Challenge!  Please bring an appetizer/dessert (primarily finger foods) to share at this meeting to enjoy some social time!

JULY and August Meetings

We will meet in July and August (same time, same place) for a less structured, mainly social time together with conversations, group projects, and Show & Tell (of course!). Leftover Treasure Shop fabric will be available to members for sale at $2/yard at both meetings.

July 1 - Stay tuned for details. Treasure Shop fabric will by available for sale.

August 5 - BQG member Maria Schmidt will help us create mailable postcards.  During the meeting we'll make several front sides using scraps and other provided materials. We'll take home our creations to complete to complete with a sewing machine, possibly at a future Sew Day. (Maria displayed her large collection of postcards at the April "bed turning" meeting.)

Board Members for next year, July 2025-June 2026

We publish the slate of officers one month before we vote in June. Here is the slate of officers for the next Quilt Year (July 2025-June 2026).

Executive Board

President: Legene White
Vice President: Rebecca Green
Secretary: Cathy McFarland
Treasurer: Cathy O’Bryan (Susie May to Shadow)

Standing Committee Chairs:

Programs: Annie Kelly. (Co-chair open)
Membership: Brenda Reed and Dee Morris
Communications/WebManager: Karen Levay ( Kris Stewart to shadow)
Communty Quilts: Btown Bee (Betsy Glassey and Betsy Birch contacts)

Special Committee Chairs:

Outreach and Publicity: Open
Raffle Quilt: Sandy Bonsib
Fall Retreat: Jo Ann Sporleder
Winter Retreat: Amber Brooks-Wolfe and Elaine Lucas
Sunshine: Amber Brooks-Wolfe

The Outreach and Publicity role can be flexible. In the past it involved distributing posters/bookmarks to quilt shops, arranging for booth space at events such as the 4th Street Festival, and working to recruit a diverse membership to the guild to keep us healthy and growing.

Vote for the 2025 BQG Volunteer of the Year

PLEASE VOTE BY May 31 for the 2024-2025 BQG Volunteer of the Year. The award highlights a guild member who has had a positive impact on furthering the mission of the Guild, raised public awareness of the Guild, and has promoted the needs of its members. The winner will be announced at the June 3rd meeting, will wear a glittering tiara, and receive a $50 gift certificate. 

The link to the ballot was included in the email you received about the May At A Glance.

Brenda Julovich 

Brenda has served the Guild for two years as Program Co-chair. She and her co-chair consistently found quality speakers. Brenda significantly improved the Guild’s ability to allow speakers to present a program via Zoom with good visual and sound quality. She independently researched the needed equipment, sourced a large screen, and documented the set-up for the projector, speakers and screen. Brenda contributed to the Guild in other ways too, hanging quilts for the BQG and IHQS quilt shows, and always supports other guild activities. 

Brenda has been a remarkably energetic and conscientious Program Chair! This was particularly evident during the December holiday meeting when she herded “us cats” through multiple stations with enthusiasm that permeated the whole evening.

Sandy Bonsib

Sandy was Co-chair of the BQG’s fall quilt show—a huge task. She has chaired the raffle quilt for two years, handling ticket distribution and sales, cheering on members to “sell those tickets,” and recruiting volunteers to promote ticket sales at the BQG & IHQS quilt shows. Sandy also stewards the Middle Way House Bee that makes many donation quilts. 

Amber Brooks-Wolfe

Amber has planned and facilitated several winter retreats, providing an enjoyable “sewing escape” for us all. Behind the scenes, she faithfully serves as the Guild’s Sunshine Chair, sending cards to members for celebrations, illness, and condolence. She creates birthday cupcakes so we all get a treat for our birthdays.

Ginny Kopper

Anyone who chairs the Treasure Shop deserves this award! In addition to the Treasure Shop, she has put in a great deal of time in organizing the orphan block project and starting an Orphan Block Bee. She has pieced and quilted many quilts for charity. She is a true asset of the quilt guild and a great human being.

I nominate Ginny Kopper for opening her home to the Treasure Shop, her tireless efforts and hundreds of hours she must have spent sorting, her patience with the volunteer help that invaded her home and other projects like orphan block quilts that she quietly but seemingly effortlessly gets done.

Ginny put an unbelievable amount of work into preparing for the Treasure Shop in 2024. She started in December 2023 and worked tirelessly and faithfully through the year. She allowed the guild to take over her basement space to sort and store the donations, and every Wednesday there were many volunteers there working. She directed the sorting and preparation of the fabric donations. I worked with her a lot during that period, and I never heard her complain or express doubt that the work would get done.

Community Quilts

What a generous group of people our guild members are! We continue to collect and distribute quilts to a wide group of programs throughout the Bloomington community. So far we have distributed 436 quilts to various organizations in the Bloomington area. Check the Community Quilts webpage to see where all the quilts go! This page also gives some indication of the sizes that are needed for each of the organizations that have received quilts.

Of course you do not need to belong to a special group to make quilts for community quilts project. However, both the Middle Way and New Hope groups are welcoming new members! Contact Sandy Bonsib if you are interested in joining the Middle Way group and Karen Levay if you are interested in sewing for New Hope.

TREE Quilt - The 2024/2025 Guild Challenge

Every year, there is a quilt challenge, issued by the winner of the previous year’s challenge. This year Jane Pitt issues the challenge Trees!

Quilters have been representing trees in their work for centuries. 

Plain or fancy, pieced, appliquéd, or embroidered, trees are always welcomed in quilts. So grab your preferred method and let’s grow some trees! Your entry in our challenge can be any size or shape, but must be quilted and bound, and ready for our June 2025 guild meeting. For more information and to see pictures of winners of previous years see the challenge web page.

Raffle Quilt

Be sure to get tickets from Sandy Bonsib at guild meetings for this year's beautiful raffle quilt. Raffle tickets are a creative Valentine, Easter or birthday gift for family and friends!  Drawing occurs at June meeting. More information on the raffle quilt page.

Remember to turn in your tickets to Sandy Bonsib at the April, May, and June meetings.

SAVE THE DATES!

fall 2025 Retreat

The Fall 2025 retreat will be at Waycross Camp and Conference Center. The dates are Monday Oct 13 -Thursday Oct 16, 2025.
We have to checkout after breakfast from our rooms, but can stay in sewing room until 3. Details will follow this summer when registration will open.

WINTER 2026 Retreat

The 2026 Winter Retreat will be at McCormick’s Creek State Park from Saturday, January 31, 2026 to Tuesday, February 3, 2026. This will provide the weekend quilters the ability to stay all day Sunday to sew and also people can go to church or the IU Women's basketball game and still be able to sew most of the day. 

The Indiana state parks run a special each winter and they plan to run it again next winter, the 2 for 1 Winter Special rate. If you stay at the Inn Sunday night Monday night is free. Saturday night would be at a discounted rate. Example this year for a double queen room the cost was $336 for 3 nights. Next year with the special the same room would cost about $224. This may change if the state parks raise the room rates.