25th Anniversary Challenge

Jo-Ann Evans made the winning Challenge piece to help celebrate our guild's 25th Anniversary. The 24" x 30" quilt featured a pieced tree for each year and contained important historical information--organizing date, past presidents' names, and dates and locations of our quilt shows (beginning at Trinity Episcopal Parish House in 1985, then ten shows at Jackie Dole Sherrill Community Center, Hurricane Katrina date, causing us to delay the 2005 show until 2006, and arriving at Lake Terrace Convention Center in 2008).
Other participants in the Challenge were Martha Ginn, Barbara Peters, Allene Korinek, Sally Henderson, Doris Dunn, Donna Crager, Frances Good, and Kim Overstreet.

Sara Ward from Philadelphia presented a trunk show and shared many beautiful quilts with the group. She brought with her several family members representing three generations who are helping to carry on the rich quilting heritage.
After careful thought and discussion, the group decided on the theme for our 2012 show: "Life on Our Planet," opening up possibilities of thinking green, repurposing fabric, and conservation of our natural resources. This will follow 2010's theme of Log Cabins.

Joy O'Keefe--Don't Make Waves

Subtitle: Quilts Should Hang or Lay Flat and Square
At our October 21 meeting we were treated to a comprehensive program by one of our non-resident but active members, Joy O'Keefe, of Paducah, Kentucky. Joy lived in Long Beach, Mississippi, until Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home. When she and husband Maurice were deciding on where to relocate (nearer their son in St. Louis), Joy's love of quilts and quilting made Paducah a logical choice. She comes back to Mississippi for business and medical matters, so PBQ members scheduled her for a program. She displayed two of her seemingly flawless quilts and shared some of the stories of quilts saved and quilts lost. But losses have not slowed down her passion to continue creating beautiful quilts and to do this with the greatest precision possible.

Joy's presentation went from the basics to completion and included information on these vital points:

• Buy good quality fabric, prepare fabrics, cut with accuracy.
• Good sewing machine care, accurate seams, stitching accurately.
• Press (don't iron), beware of off-grain edges, check often.
• Diagonal settings, adding borders (stripped, pieced or appliqued, butted or mitered).
• Blocking, shaping, pinning, squaring, stabilizing, and quilting.
• Binding, finishing, sleeve, labeling.

Joy advised us, when viewing our own quilts or those of others, to train ourselves to be a judge and not a critic. We can utilize our knowledge of the elements and principles of art (combining line, form, space, color, value, texture, and light to achieve harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, unity and emphasis) and practice these traits through precise workmanship. We should first admire the strengths of a piece (ours or others') before we note any imperfections.
She affirmed each of us with "Quilters are fiber artists. Wear the title proudly."

2010 Show Categories Posted

The categories for the Pine Belt Quilters 2010 Fiber Art & Quilt Show are listed below:

You may enter one piece per category, with an overall limit of eight entries per person.

Appliqué Team Large
Appliqué Team Small

Appliqué Large
Appliqué Small

Pieced Team Large
Pieced Team Small

Pieced Large
Pieced Small

Mixed Team Large
Mixed Team Small

Mixed Large
Mixed Small

Theme (Log Cabin) Any Size

Small/Lap/Crib/Children

Embroidery/Whole Cloth/Stitchery/Other Any Size

Friendship (Group) Any Size

Art Any Size

Pictorial Any Size

Wearables

Miniatures (Maximum Size 24”)

Youth (made by youth eighteen years and under)

Children's Quilts...and Pillows

Our August meeting featured our Parade of Children's Quilts with Doris Dunn's yellow ice cream quilt winning the vote for our favorite. Although our CQ group works all year making quilts, we encourage all our members to make at least one a year and bring to this meeting. Eighteen new quilts were brought in; several people had already turned theirs in to be included in the ones given to the 155th Brigade Combat Team shipping out from Camp Shelby in May.

Our members have really jumped on the bandwagon by making small pillows for the Pediatric Unit at Forrest General Hospital. Ruth Byrd collected 116 more pillows at our September 16 meeting and delivered them to the hospital. This makes a total of 380 pillows we have donated to date! The nurses are so thankful and tell how excited the youngsters are over owning their very own pillow.

MQA Educational Seminar with M'Liss Rae Hawley

Hattiesburg's Pine Belt Quilters hosted the third class of MQA's 2009 Educational Seminar on July 31-August 1 with M'Liss Rae Hawley teaching from her book, Mariner's Medallion Quilts (C&T Publishing). Thirteen students attended the two-day class and reported they gained valuable knowledge in auditioning and selecting fabric for their quilts.

Class participants were, L to R (front): Mary Nell Magee, Marietta Johnson, Gloria Burlette, (M'Liss), Diana Boulware, Kim Overstreet, Chris Jarrell (back): Paula Kopp, Kay Guillot, Therese Springer, Betty Bingham, Cynthia Reaves, Deb Milam, and Wynema McGrew.

M'Liss and PBQ president Barb Peters

The students used a variety of fabrics, as illustrated above. Each student came with a copy of the book and the fabrics she had chosen for her quilt. As each showed her fabrics, the group offered critiques on why one fabric would work better than another and how to complete the quilt after making the center block. M'Liss was courteous with her comments, gently suggesting "how about try this?" instead of criticizing a bad choice, leading the students to explore possibilities and train their eyes to see good choices.

There was lots of sharing of fabrics as quilters recognized how a fabric they had would be the perfect addition to a neighbor's block. M'Liss also gave tips on sleeves and binding which will be helpful later. Due to the serious illness of her mother, she had to fly back home a little early on the second day of class but had packed extra material into the first day's class in preparation of this possibility. Coordinating a flight out of New Orleans with a ferry ride to Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Washington takes some planning! We enjoyed having her way down South.

Watermelon Patch Quilt Raffle

Diann Loper of Purvis was the lucky winner of the Watermelon Patch quilt at the drawing today at the Pine Belt Quilters meeting. The quilt had been displayed at the June 13 Blueberry Festival in Poplarville where tickets were sold. It was a cooperative effort by Vivian Plummer (the top); Mary Nell Magee (borders and binding); Sally Henderson (machine appliqued watermelon halves in the corners); and Susie Jackson (elaborate machine quilting).
We lost one of our prolific quilters last month--Barbara F. Parker--and her family donated her extensive fabric collection to our Children's Quilts Projects. There was far more than our storage could accommodate, so we offered some for sale to our members. The sale brought in just under $300, which will be used to purchase batting. Proceeds from the Watermelon Patch quilt raffle will also go to Children's Quilts.

Logan Brenner, Women and Children's Operations Manager at Forrest General Hospital, attended our meeting to accept 66 small pillows that our members made for the children. She is pictured with Ruth Byrd, who headed up the project. Logan said the pillows brighten the clinical environment and cheer up the patients as well as the pediatric staff, who appreciate the fact that there are so many wonderful people in our community who care about these children.
Our June program was a presentation by Shirley Wiltshire of advice on ways to organize sewing spaces and supplies. She showed slides of many storage arrangements and encouraged quilters to first remove everything from the sewing area and obtain the proper tables and shelving in order to create the most efficient use of the available space.

Quilt for Homes of Hope for Children

Sarah Dixon, Communications Director of Homes of Hope for Children, is shown receiving the 55" x 70" string quilt donated by Pine Belt Quilters for use in HOHFC's 3rd annual fund raising auction on August 29 at the Hattiesburg Cultural Center. The event will be called Taste of Home and will feature local restaurants with their favorite dishes.

March 8 was groundbreaking day for the first building--the House Parents Relief Duplex. This building will initially be used as counseling/office space during construction of the other buildings on campus. The property is located at the corner of White Chapel Road and Harold Tucker Road in Purvis.