My old Modern Quilt Guild wasn’t quite making it as a group. Meetings were far away and people pretty much just stopped showing up for them. I really had fun at our monthly meetings and sewing days when people came, and it was frustrating me that people didn’t seem to be as into the guild as I was. Patchwork and quilting are some of my passions and having a Modern Quilt Guild in our area is something that’s really important to me. I love and need the camaraderie that comes with a guild. It makes me so happy to get together with like-minded people for a few hours a month and chit-chat about something that most people don’t really “get.” So, when the Southwest Virginia Modern Quilt Guild seemed to be on its very last leg, I decided I had to take action and my friend Dani and I started up the Roanoke Modern Quilt Guild. I made up a logo, we decided on our first meeting date, and I printed  some flyers and put them up all over the place. Our first meeting was in May and only five people showed up, but that to me was still a success. The meeting went really well! We decided what we wanted to focus on as a guild and everyone left feeling happy and inspired.

We held our second meeting last night and we now have two more new members! I couldn’t have been happier. We had a tasty potluck, a scrap swap, a zipper demonstration by Dani and we planned our “challenges” for our next meeting in July – a zipper pouch swap and at least one block each for the Modern Quilt Guild QuiltCon Block Challenge. It was really fun.

Our June challenge was to make a tiny quilted name tag. The only requirements were that it had to be small and should represent our guild in some way. I did mine really quickly the night before, so it’s nowhere near perfect, but still pretty cute.

I paper pieced the sawtooth star in the middle and quickly/sloppily embroidered my name with some pink Cosmo floss. The whole thing measures a little less than 5×5 :) Everybody did a great job on their name tags (I forgot to take a picture of everyone’s together!) and it was fun to see everyone’s personal spin on the project.

I’m really looking forward to next month’s meeting! If you’re in the Roanoke area and you’re into quilting, or if you’ve never even made a quilt block in your life but are interested in learning, please come to our July meeting! We would love to have you. More information can be found on our Facebook page. ♥