First Quilt, Best Quilt

by Julie
(Plainfield)

This is a really fun activity to do every few years in place of having an outside speaker come and give a lecture at your quilt guild meeting.

Members are encouraged to bring two quilts to the meeting, their FIRST quilt and then their BEST or FAVORITE quilt (sometimes those can be two different quilts as we all know!)

If a member doesn't have their first quilt, then one of their beginning quilts works just as well.

There are several benefits to having a meeting like this:

• It doesn't cost anything so it's great for months where travel can be iffy.
  


• Do it once, and your members will be anticipating the next time.


• Members get to know each other a bit better, because many are up in front of the guild talking for awhile. If you have a bunch of new members, this is a good way to help them feel like they belong so-o-o much sooner.


• New quilters get to see that everyone started at the beginning.


• If you've got a quilt show coming up, your show committee can be on the lookout for quilts. OK, I admit that's kind of sneaky, but if you're short on quilts at registration time, it's nice to have an ideas of members with finished quilts. Perhaps you might even have a display of "First Quilt/Best Quilt" in your quilt show, itself!


• It really gets members talking to each other (this kind of meeting CAN get a bit loud)

The biggest "if" to having a meeting like this is having enough quilts.

Talk it up in your newsletter.

Contact the bees in your guild (the fastest way outside normal communications to get to a bunch of quilters quickly) and ask for their participation. We all like to be asked.

It's a fun night!

This article was printed from Generations-Quilt-Patterns.com