At our April 2025 meeting we heard from Shannon Shirley.  She presented an eclectic mix of many techniques from her toolbox that achieve the end result…a beautiful unique quilt, including quilts incorporating vintage needlework, art quilts, traditional, creative quilt labels.... with an emphasis on incorporating children's artwork into your quilt. https:// www.onceinarabbitmoon.com/

Below are many pictures from the day.

Our March 2025 meeting was a demo day.  Three of our talented members demonstrated quilting techniques.  Below are pictures from the day.

Kim Kellman

A fabric book gives you a new mode of expression and communication in fabric.  Kim Kellman demonstrated her technique for constructing a fabric book and provided a list of other exciting artists working with this form of quilting.

Sandra Smith

Inspired by a picture from a magazine, Sandra created the design for a bedspread that she never made. In this demo she talked about her design process by illustrating how she made her block template to make it easier to make many blocks as well as how she used color and transparency to create.

Coralyn Colladay

Perfect Points Every Time. Coralyn demoed paper piecing.

 

 

February 12, 2025 was another snowy day and again the meeting was done by zoom.  Lee Chappell Monroe gave a talk titled 'Expanding Color Horizons'.  She discussed basic color theory and showed how applying these concepts will achieve new results.  Below are a some screen shots from the presentation.

Due to bad weather our January 2025 meeting was a zoom meeting.  The bad weather did not distract from the beauty of the skillfully done antique quilts presented by Debby Cooney.  She is quilt historian and collector with a special interest in Baltimore album quilts. She showed many quilts made in Maryland from the 1820's to the turn of the century.  Below are some screenshots from the day.  Thank you to Susan Hattan and Pam Zurer for the pictures.

Once again we held our Holiday Luncheon at the December 2024 meeting.  Our program chairs, Julie Nelson and Michael Garbus, did a fantastic job planning and organizing a lovely event.  There was show and tell, a view of our opportunity quilt for the quilt show, fun games and prizes and of course plenty of amazing food.  Also a shopping opportunity.  More fabric, who can resist! Below are a few pictures of the event.

In November, Needlechasers joined together for a Quilt-a-Thon.  With love and joy the group assembled incubator covers. 

Below are pictures from the day.

Our October meeting featured our own Elizabeth Lee.  Wow! Elizabeth discovered the therapeutic art of quilting in 2019, finding solace in its intricate puzzle of cutting up fabrics and putting them back together.  She took a class from the late Freddie Moran and learned her method to create whimsical faces and stories.

 Below see Elizabeth and pictures from her talk.

Our September 2024 meeting was a Zoom meeting with David Owen Hastings, presenting a talk entitled  "Exploring Nature with Paper & Stitch.
He started with showing his inspiration pictures of the area where he lives and explaining his creative process.  He showed his amazing stitched paper artwork and finished with his quilted fabric creations.  His presentation was both beautiful and inspirational.  Below are pictures from the meeting.

Our August meeting was our annual summer camp.  The morning gave us all an opportunity to try some improv piecing techniques.  Three techniques were taught, Round We Go, Skinny Strips Make the Connection and Patchwork Fieldsand.  We all got a chance to try them. Camp would not be complete without a great lunch. Below are pictures of the day.

July  2024 our program was titled "Leaves of Redemption: A Memory Project,"
The presenter, Lynda Tredway described her motivation for this project as follows: “As a white, Midwestern daughter, I experience racism’s pangs in my family raising a mixed race daughter. As a mother, I hear the all-too-regular stories of my daughter, her father, and her husband. As a teacher, I hear similar stories of racism from my students—Black men and boys whose gifts are a treasure in and for our society. Because I want the unknown names of the victims of lynching 
to be memorialized, remembered, counted, as an artist and a history teacher and a memory keeper, I make quilts for each state—often
several quilts for some states—to remember the thousands of men and women lynched in America.”

At our April 2024 we were treated to a trunk show and talk given by Rae Cumbie titled “Making a Tabula Rasa Jacket: Trunk
Show and Process Description”.  We had an overview on how to make a Tabula Rasa Jacket.  She inspired us with many beautiful jackets.
Below are pictures of a few jackets and Rae Cumbie.

Our March meeting featured Cindy Grisdela. She shared tips and tricks for working improvisationally.  Her beautiful quilts are created using many methods of improvisational piecing.  They feature many curves and straight lines and makes use of many scraps, mostly solids.  A fabulous presentation.

What a terrific day.  Febuary 2024 was Needlechaser's annual Quilt-a-Thon.  We were tasked with the finishing of incubator covers requested by The George Washington Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  They are so fabulous and useful, other hospitals have requested some.  There was a fantastic turnout.  Below you will see some of the covers and members who participated.  A great job done by all the planners and organizers.

In December, we celebrated the season with a chili luncheon ending with a cake to mark Needlechasers 45th year of quilting and friendship.  Games were played, quilts were shared, food and money was collected for a local food bank and by all accounts it was a wonderful way to end another year.  Below are some pictures of the festivities.

At our November meeting, we were treated to a very interesting talk from Audrey Esarey on Low Water Immersion Dyeing.

Low Water Immersion (LWI) dyeing is an excellent entry point for experimenting with hand-dyed fabrics. Using a mix of photographs and videos, Audrey showed the steps of LWI dyeing, demonstrating and explaining all the steps along the way. She ended by sharing how she uses these fabrics in her quilts. Below is a photo of Audrey and several of her outstanding quilts.  Her website and instagram can be found under the name CottonandBourbon.

At our October 2023 meeting we heard Linda Syverson Guild present Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

Linda talked about how she transforms materials from estate sales, antique sales, old clothing and quilts, and tablecloths to build designs in fabric, letting the project be the story.

Linda was originally trained as an architect. Her fiber art career has taken several twists and turns. Having moved away from traditional quilting, she stepped out of her comfort zone to shared how she plays with individual colors, using one color from the color wheel; how she builds pieces that appear to span space, unsupported; and how she finishes small pieces, combining them to make larger pieces of art.

Below are pictures of Linda and some of her amazing works.

 

 

The August meeting featured Judy Gula of Artistic Artifacts.  Judy presented the history of indigo dyeing around the world.   Many dyeing techniques were presented.  The techniques included arashi, ne-maki, itajime, kumo and shibori.  Following the presentation several members attended the workshop
given by Judy where they were given the opportunity to try some of the techniques.  Below are pictures of some of the beautiful fabric created.