patimint

I just joined my local quilt guild. 1st meeting was last Wed of Sept. No meeting in July, Aug, Nov or Dec. Everyone was really friendly. There were probably 40+ people there. We had a guest speaker and then "show & tell" where members show finished projects. We have smaller groups from the guild that meets weekly, most are limited to size & most are full. Some make quilts for charity & some just meet and sew on projects. Our dues are $20.00 per year, refreshments are provided by groups of member (different group each meeting)and we pay $.50 each meeting if we fail to were our name tag. I think I will enjoy it. Our quilt show is in June (we have a quilt show once every 2 years).

purplefiend

Omafor4,
My big guild has about 15 men as members, one of them has been a member since he was 12; he's 19 now and makes fabulous quilts and is a good teacher too. He is one of our librarians.
I'm sorry that the county guild is being so mean to you.

purplefiend

I am in 2 guilds. The larger one has about 640 members, meets both daytime and nightime, we just had our show last month(show every 2 yrs.); meetings year round. We meet the 1st Monday of the month have a speaker and classes,
there are 50 bees that meet when the members choose. We have show & tell and we make charity quilts for the county health department and also Quilts of Valor.
The smaller guild has 170 members and I like it better as its smaller and is closer to where I live. We meet the 1st
Tuesday of the month, have classes and a speaker. We make quilts for a local org. "The Linus Connection" and also Quilts of Valor. We meet year round.
Sharon W.

bonniebusybee

I won't go into too much detail about our local guild; our activities are pretty much like the rest of you. Something we used to do when we first started, about six years ago: We would learn a new technique or a new block each month; then we would pick a color scheme (i.e., Valentine time it would be reds and pinks.) Each member would bring a block the next month in those colors, using the block or technique taught, all the same size blocks, and we would have a drawing for those blocks. It was such fun, and if we won we came home usually with enough blocks to make a wall hanging or a baby quilt, which we showed at the next month's meeting. Wish we still did that!

Lilrain

I belong to our local guild. We usually end our membership year with over 500 members. We have, during the year 6 or 7 nationally know speakers, and those speakers usually have a couple of workshops for our members. Those workshops are for normally about 25-20 people and are classes the speaker offers. The only actual sewing that is done at our meeting is people doing handwork of their own. We have had Sharon Craig and Ruth McDowell each a couple of times. Also had Brenda Henning, and many other well known authors. We have a raffle quilt each year and all of the proceeds go to a local charity. And our members teach workshops once a year at a very reasonable price for other members.

Annya

My Quilt group range from 30 to 60+ at a time. We start the second week in January and go to first week in December. There are women and some men or partners of the pensioner ladies who come along to out bus trips and help out for our Challenge Day in July with setting up the hall for the great day. The ladies do a range of things from knitting, crocheting, quilting and other crafts and there are plenty of women who are willing to teach us HOW TO do things. At the moment one Great lady is teaching us the machine Quilting techniques. The ages range from 8 years old to 95 years and Boy do we have a fun morning every Wednesday morning. We pay $10Au yearly and $2Au every day which goes to a nominated charity.

diana0307

Our guild has over 150 members. We meet once a month, plus can use the local museum to sit and sew on Tuesdays. I work so that never is available for me.

We have wonderful guild member teachers, and seem to get the nicest people to join. I was president for two years and over came my fear of public speaking. Luckily, they were patient with me.!!!

I would recommend going to the Christmas party. Usually someone will jump in and make you feel comfortable right away and you'll have new friends!!! So much talent in our group, and I really haven't seen many cliques...Diana

zquilter

Thank you all. It is interesting to know what the rest of the world is doing.

Pegleg

-I belong to the Prairie Quilt Guild in Wichita, KS. We pay a measly $25.00 for a yearly membership. We have approximately 900 members. We have a national speaker most months who do workshops and give 2 speeches as we have an afternoon and evening meeting to accommodate the large membership. Sometimes they have different topics at each meeting. I have come away from a meeting with so much enthusiasm that I can't turn my head off to sleep! I feel it isd probably the best $25.00 I spend all year. I have made lifelong friends through the guild. I encourage everyone to join their local guild. Sometimes I don't think I am too interested in the speakers topics only to find myself thoroughly enjoying their funny or informative way of telling their point of view on quilting.

ArtisticDesign

Great thread, I just checked into guilds in my area last week and from what I could tell there were two of them ...The first one seemed to be bigger..However, the second one was called "Modern quilt guild"... I quickly joined their online forum to check it out.. As I prefer artsy to traditional quilting..
You guys have given me looots of questions to ask before I even decide to try the first meeting lol...I don't think I would care for doing group projects on a deadline at all.. I want to learn new things.. Classes, sewing, socializing were my main goals.
I do know they meet once a month ( at a members house, from what I gather).And it seems to be a small group of regulars..Their web site doesnt seem very active..However, I have seen pics of them sitting around sewing machines at meetings lol
Interesting,that there are so many different opinions on guilds... I must research more lol