October Newsletter

  

Recap of recent activites: 

-Brookswood day-- Fifteen members met outdoors from 12-3pm on October 2nd. The weather was great! Thanks Lynne M. for coordinating this day, and all of the other days we've met outdoors at Brookswood. It is difficult to find a place for group gatherings during these times of Covid 19, and this has turned out to be ideal. Future meetings like this will only take place as weather permits.

- We had a quilt basting evening at Seniors Come Share. Four members brought quilts to baste. Tables were set up, and people had plenty of space to spread out their quilts. It was a productive evening. 

-The four members that joined our group this September met together with Gloria and Bonnie at Seniors Come Share. It was an informal get together. We discussed what our group does. We also had a little Show 'n' Tell. It was a good chance to get to know one another a little bit better. 

-We had a virtual sew in day. Several members participated. We had a great time visiting while we sewed. Some people just checked in briefly, and some stayed all day.

-The people who are participating in the Round Robin activity found out who will be in their group. They also recieved the instructions to get the project started.

Thank-you to everyone who submitted items for this newsletter. It is packed full of great things to read. Remember to click on the links along the right side of this page.

Bio of Carol Bagshaw

Originally from Cobourg, Ontario, where I have a son, daughter-in-law, and four beautiful grandkids.  About ten years ago, a very good friend asked if I would be interested in Quilting. I said definitely not, I had no interest what so ever.  She said too bad as she had signed me up for an upcoming class.  That was the start of my new hobby!  I found it difficult at first since I really was not interested but something clicked and I became a tad obsessed.  Then I decided to go on a little adventure and move to White Rock with my second son, wife and two awesome grandkids.  I was only going to stay for two years, I am now in my seventh year, I love the climate and the people I’m meeting but still miss Ontario’s Fall colours.

Then I met my neighbour, Linda Brock, who Introduced me to The Crescent Quilters.  I was able to become a Member right away, and also met Faith McLeod who does amazing design quilting on her long arm machine.

I went to Ontario for five months because I still miss the Fall colours, gave up my Membership and upon returning had to go back on the Waiting List.  I am again a Member of this friendly group of Quilters.

                                                                  Fall quilt by Carole.

Fall table runner and napkin by Carol

Bio of Nicky Armstrong:

A Bio? Well, let’s see, I was born in England in 19…..HaHa! Just kidding, way too boring!

For the last 37 years I worked as a travel agent with American Express Travel and then BCAA. In 2005 my husband and I purchased Cruise Holidays (he had to keep his own job tho!!) and I was excited to have my own business. We tripled the business over the next few years and then in 2015 we sold to Maritime Travel and I retired. It was the perfect time to try new things!

I’ve always had an interest in crafts, nothing complicated, just something relaxing and fun after a day at work. Crocheting, simple jewellery making, card making, sewing, etc. I’ve just finished 4 fun Christmas pillow cases I’ll send to my nephews for a pre-Christmas present.

I’ve lived in Surrey pretty much all my life and only just moved to Abbotsford. It’s funny, as I’ve always been interested in quilting, but never learned and during our recent move I unpacked a box and found what must have been my first attempt at quilting. A bunch of squares sewn together, must have been more than 35 years ago! At least now I know how to finish it off thanks to CQ!

I met Karen a few years ago and we got to talking about her quilting. I told her how I’d thought of giving it a try many times and she suggested joining CQ….and I’m so happy I did!

I’ve done 2 small lap quilts and a few placemats so far. Now, I’m finishing up my first full/twin size quilt that I’m making for my 95 year old mother in law (She’s the one that taught me to crochet!). She’s in a home in White Rock and I hope this quilt will cheer her up as she’s in lock down due to the pandemic.

I found the fabric in Yuma, AZ and as soon as I saw it, I knew she would love the purples!

I needed to make sure I did something not too complicated and the big 18” blocks made it finish up fast. I kept the quilting simple….just some straight off centre lines and X’s. I don’t have much luck with binding so wanted to avoid that if I could. Of course, that meant it would sit over the chair for the next several weeks while I kept looking at it, trying to figure out how I was going to finish it. Once decided, it took another long while to get the nerve to try it! I pinned the backing, batting and quilt top together inside out, sewed around the edge, turned it all right side out, pinned it all again and then started quilting it. (There’s probably a proper name for this style, but I don’t know what it is!) As long as you don’t look closely, and aside from a few bumps and crinkles, I’m pretty happy with my first attempt! I definitely learned a lot, mostly, that I have a lot more to learn! The round robin quilt looks to be a lot of fun and another good learning experience for me!

Christmas pillow cases by Nicky

Purple quilt by Nicky. Made for her mother in law.

Placemats by Nicky

Bio for Susan McLennan

I grew up north of Toronto. I moved to a Montreal suburb with my husband and baby boy where a new, very talented stitching friend convinced me to add yet another stitching hobby to my broad range of stitching interests and ufo’s by taking a paper piecing quilting class. I learned a lot from my Montreal stitching mommy friends despite having a toddler and then a baby girl. We moved back to Ontario where I started a weekly stitching group of moms, at my kitchen table, working together on our own versions of the same quilt. We pumped out quite a few lovely quilts! Then we moved again in 2004 to South Surrey (we now live in White Rock).

I joined Crescent Quilters not too long after moving here, hearing about the group from someone at Laura’s Fashion Fabrics. I had to wait for a while on the waiting list, but I got in! I thoroughly enjoyed being part of such a lovely, creative group, but my teenagers were keeping me hopping so I decided to withdraw and let someone else with more time to dedicate to quilting enjoy the group. I think that was back maybe in 2011 or 2012. It wasn’t that I wasn’t stitching, but it was tutus, not quilts which were keeping me busy. I’ve been sewing dance costumes for at least 12 years.

I’m still sewing costumes but our children have moved out so I decided it was time to get back to my quilting. I bumped into Bonnie at Chan’s a while back and asked her to add me back on the wait list. I was invited back into Crescent Quilters in January 2020, went to my first meeting in February then…

Despite the pandemic my quilting hasn’t progressed very much because I’m easily distracted. I’ve been sewing masks like crazy for friends and family. And I got connected with a volunteer group making scrub caps and head bands for front line workers too.

My other relatively new passion is choral singing! I joined Crescent Choirs (isn’t that cool 🌙) about 3 years ago. The pandemic made singing in a choir as life threatening as skydiving. As research and regulations progressed, so did mask design. I offered to coordinate the making of 100 singers’ masks for the 4 Crescent Choirs. It is a 3D design using zip ties as boning to keep the fabric out of your mouth as you breathe, with layers of 660 thread count cotton for droplet blocking and polyester interfacing for catching the aerosols. They aren’t pretty, but they are not bad for singing in and the director says the sound is quite good!

The singers’ masks are almost all finished, I’ve joined the Crescent Quilters round robin, I’ve mail ordered quite a bit of fabric, I’ve signed up for an online quilting course, so I hope to get back my quilting soon! Before it’s time to ramp up for dance costumes!

Thank you for having me back!