Board Meeting, Recipe request

Had the Town & Country Quilters board meeting today. Coming up to the end of our year with membership dues due in October. The new board will take over at the November meeting.

One item of interest in the group was the creation of a cookbook with all the great recipes we all enjoy at the meetings. Sounds like a great project. Still in the early stages of planning. How many of you would be interested in contributing recipes and/or helping?

Des Moines AQS Show

Got an email from Lynne:

"The Grand Lake O’the Cherokees Quilt Guild in Grove, OK is planning a bus trip to the 2009 AQS Expo & Contest in Des Moines, Iowa. This is the second year for the AQS sponsored show. The show runs October 28-31, 2009. It’s a 3 day trip: Travel to Des Moines on Oct. 27 (Tues), attend show, special events on Oct. 28 (Wed-opening day) and return home, Oct. 29, Thursday.
We estimate the price could range from $176.63 to $205.66 depending on number of travelers and people per room, etc. Since the bus originates from Joplin, we could arrange to pick up and drop off travelers in Joplin."

I'll put the details in the newsletter, but if you want more info now call Lynne.

Kansas Traveler

I have been out and about. Made a trip to Wichita and went by Needle in a Haystack. That's the shop close to Severy. I used to live not far from there and took a few classes. This was about 15 years ago. They had just started. Somewhere around that time the new road (Hwy 400) was completed and they had to move the building back away from the highway. Looks like it's a quilt store and consignment shop now but back then it was only fabrics and classes. They always have something different. Have you noticed that every shop has it's own "personality"?

Can you believe the nice weather we are having?! Here it is only the first of September and so nice and cool. Time to revitalize the lawn.

Fabric for borders or backing need not be expensive

I guess Myra found a website that she likes for buying fabric.
She says:
"I was looking for a certain fabric and found it at: www.marshalldrygoods.com A lot of their fabric was $3.99/yd. They are in Arkansas so there was no tax. I paid $5.99 shipping but on 4 yards of fabric, it made my fabric
$6.50/yard---still cheaper than buying it at a fabric store."

And, off the topic - if you haven't seen it already - go see "Julie and Julia". It is a hoot. The scene with her and her sister is priceless.

Off Topic - Garden

We are having so much very hot wind today. I have been trying to water everything since it's been such a while since we had a good rain. Last May we had a really bad storm here in Joplin. Not a tornado, but almost. We lost several 20-30 ft. shade trees in our yard and in the adjacent empty lot. Therefore, it's been all sun this year. This poor potato vine (that's just one plant) is really struggling. I'm giving it extra water but can't stop the wind.

Guild budgets

Hey Barbara, you've brought up a great new topic - fund raising.
We seem to have a healthy budget - that is, until we look at what it costs for anything - such as our poll/racks for hanging quilts at the show. And/or the cost of having a national speaker. Our main money-maker is the Quilt show but that's just every other year. Wonder what other guilds do?
I think the comments about the library are on target. I typically buy books either on impulse at the shop or sometimes on Amazon for a specific project. Once I decided to do a Bargello quilt. Couldn't find a book locally (is this a passed fad?)but found one in the guild library. Checked it out and read it and decided I really didn't want to do it. So that worked out to my advantage.
Got to run. Every month after I finish the newsletter I take it over to Gloria and we proofread it and see if I left anything out or if there are any "glaring" mistakes. There usually are a few minor ones that slip through. It seems a little skimpy this month. A lot of people are out of town. Is it August that makes us sluggish? Or is it just me?

Guild library

I was talking with the librarian for the Guild and she seems a little disappointed that not that many people are interested in checking out books. We have an extensive collection. If you are like me, you only need a book for a little while or maybe only need a chapter or two. It's expensive nowadays to buy these books as they are usually over $20. Of course, we do buy them -- for the latest and neatest techinques and tips and especially inspiration. But the oldies are always goodies! Well, anyway, I can hardly wait to see what she's done with the book she checked out last month. It's a baby quilt and she'll have it on display back in the back at the library table.