Farm Quilter

I belong to 3 guilds: (1) a small one in my home town where we meet every Monday night with a business meeting once a month, a demo night once a month and the rest of the time we bring our own project to work on or hand quilt the raffle quilt we have going. We have a quilt show and a retreat every year. (2) large guild in Spokane that meets 4 times a year with a business meeting and a guest speaker who also does a couple of classes. We have a quilt show every year. (3) a large guild in Florida with meetings once a month with a speaker who also does some classes, 2 retreats a year and a quilt show every other year. Different ladies in this guild will also give classes on a particular block/quilt during the year.

My favorite is a quilting bee I belong to in Florida with 7 ladies who meet every Thursday at one lady's home (she has a separate quilting room (building) that is set up for all of us to sew at the same time) where we sew from 10-12 then go out to lunch, returning to sew until about 3. We would plan road trips to visit quilt shops or other things of interest to everyone and go on shop hops together. When I was in Florida house/pet sitting for my daughter while she was in Afghanistan, these ladies were my sanity! I miss my weekly dose of Vitamin F (friends) now that I have returned home to Washington, but I'll be going back just to visit them. SewWhat!?! is the name of this wonderful bee! Three of us in the group are longarm quilters, one is into cross-stitching and applique, and we are all at different levels in our quilting. We have worked together to make quilts with curves and pineapple quilts, sharing templates, material and fun. We give impromptu lessons on attaching binding, making blocks and design. We also got together and put together quilts for all the guys deployed with my daughter to Afghanistan - most of the blocks were donated by quilters from all over the United States and the UK.