Advertising in the Guild Newsletter

Is your favourite quilting business advertising in guild's newsletter, The Template? The Template reaches 1000 dedicated quilters every quarter, a worthwhile market for any quilting business, and our quilt show is the largest in Australia, with entries from members across Australia.

Advertising rates start from $82.50 (inc GST) for an eighth of a page ad, with discounts for ads running over four consecutive issues - see our advertising brochure for more details.

To advertise in The Template, contact the Publicity Officer publicity@quiltersguildnsw.com

The deadline for submissions for the next [March 2007]issue of The Template is 8 January 2007 so don't delay!

Blog Housekeeping

Apologies to any subscriber that received multiple updates overnight. This happened because yesterday this blog was upgraded to Beta Blogger. In the process, some of the layout was also a little scrambled so you may notice some "tweaking" from time to time as I get images of those lovely Mini Marvel quilts back into the side bar.

The good news is that the new format enables "labels" to be applied to posts. This means that you can quickly find all blog entries relating to Quilt Show 2007 or Workshops and so on by clicking on the relevant label at the end of the post. Try it and see what I mean!

Calling Junior Quiltmakers

If the young quiltmaker (or prospective quiltmaker) in your home is at a loose end over the holidays, why not encourage them to make a quilt to enter into Sydney Quilt Show 2007?

There are some great prizes on offer including an encouragement award of Bernette 80E sewing machine generously sponsored by Bernina. What's more, there is no entry fee for guild members under 18 years of age to enter their quilts into the show.

Grinspoon by Nicolette Ahern
3rd prize - Junior Member B - Quilt Show 2006

Visit the guild website to view other winners of the Junior Member A (up to 12 years) and Junior Member B (13-18 years) categories from last year's quilt show and to download a membership application form.

Festive Artist Trading Cards

Here is a selection of festive artist trading cards (3 1/2in x 2 1/2in) exchanged at the last general meeting at Burwood:

Meroogal Women's Art Prize

The Meroogal Women’s Arts Prize is a regional non-acquisitive competition and exhibition across the fields of visual arts, crafts and design. It is open to a work using any media made by a woman 18 years and over who is a resident of the south coast and greater Illawarra region.

This year's exhibition with the theme Reduce, recycle & renew at Meroogal includes Lisa Johnson's striking woollen quilt "Red Blankets Are Warmer" and Judith Bentley's wagga-style quilt "John's Jumpers".

Members and guests of The Quilters' Guild of NSW Inc receive free admission and a complimentary cup of tea or coffee when visiting the exhibition at:

Historic House Trust Members Lounge
The Mint, 10 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW
10 October 2006 – 29 January 2007
Open Monday to Friday, 9.30am – 5pm
www.hht.net.au

The Template's cover: 2006 challenge winner

How good does Tanya Coxsedge's quilt look on the cover of The Template?

Tanya won the Guild's 2006 Challenge, Going to Pieces. In this issue, she writes about making this quilt - not an easy task, with such a confronting image being stitched.

In each issue, you'll find a piece about the cover quilt, so you can find out its story. This was one suggestion from the Guild's recent survey - the committee received lots of valuable input from this and is working through it all.

This issue doesn't use the usual Template masthead - mostly because the quilting hoop/needle would have done unkind things to Tanya's head!

Tanya included this comment about participating in Guild challenges:

I really enjoy the NSW Quilters' Guild challenges, for they force me to consider ideas I wouldn't have imagined on my own.

Read more about the Guild's 2007 Challenge, Looking Forward : Looking Back. Entry doesn't close until September 2007, and is open to all Guild members.

Look for your copy of this issue (Vol. 25 No. 1) in your letter box in mid-January.

It's Show Time!

Well almost...the Sydney Quilt Show 2007 will be at the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre from 27 June to 1 July 2007. The forthcoming issue of The Template includes an article setting out ways you can help make this 25th members' exhibition the best show ever. Pending the mail out of the entry form, here is a link to the categories and conditions of entry for Quilt Show 2007. These details are also set out in the attached pdf (60KB) document.

This is the beautiful Feather Medallion raffle quilt made by St Ives Quilters. The needle turn applique is just exquisite and is complemented by machine quilting by Jenny Campbell of Coastal Quilting.

Where's my Template?

Thanks for asking!

Coming soon, is the answer. If you'd like a taster of the contents of the new look Template, check The Template page on the Guild website - click here.

As the Guild's newsletter, it's packed with Guild news - and I do mean packed, it's remarkable how many activities are undertaken under the Guild's umbrella. So many people doing great work.

A Colourful Guild Calendar

Around sixty 12inch (30cm) quilts were entered into the Guild's calendar quilt challenge which closed last week. What a wonderful response! The quilts utilise a wide variety of techniques and styles. Here is a very small sample of entries that are already in the public domain:

The quilts will be on display at the 25th Sydney Quilt Show in June 2007 and the calendars for 2008 will be on sale. The quilts will then become another suitcase exhibition available to groups.

By the way, Lisa Walton, Nicole Bridges, Brenda Smith, Erica Spinks and rooruu also happen to have blogs and you will find links to their blogs on the side bar. If you are a guild member and would like your blog to be added to the list, please contact the Guild Webmaster.

Official Blog Launch

Today is the final Guild general meeting of the year and, as a kind of Christmas present to Guild members, we will be officially launching this Guild blog. Welcome to all new readers who are visiting for the first time!

The Committee hopes that members (and prospective members!) will find this blog a valuable resource to catch up on all the latest Guild happenings. To ensure that you don't miss out, we encourage you to electronically subscribe to blog updates by either of these methods:

Enter your email address to receive new postings to this blog via e-mail
(Remember - you can unsubscribe at any time)


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OR

If you subscribe with Bloglines, this allows you to set up a list of your favourite blogs on your computer. Then you can simply go to the list to see if a new article has been added to any of the blogs. This is much more efficient than manually checking the blogs one by one and means that you can quickly get back to quilting or other activities:-)

Neither of these services will notify you if comments have been left on the Guild blog. Nevertheless, we hope that you will leave comments from time to time as this is part of the fun of blogging and blog reading. Comment moderation has been set up on this blog which means any comments will be reviewed and approved before they show up but we anticipate that most messages will be cleared promptly. Alternatively, if you have a news item that you think might be suitable for posting on the blog, you can e-mail details to the Guild Webmaster.

As far as we know, this is the first blog by a major Australian quilting guild. The Committee is very excited about this initiative and welcomes feedback from members. Come back soon to see a selection of festive Artist Trading Cards from the swap at today's meeting:

Sydney Quilt Show Button

Preparations for the Sydney Quilt Show 2007 and Guild's 25th anniversary are well under way. If you would like to add the QS2007 button to your blog or website, here is the html code to insert into your blog template or webpage:

<a href="http://www.quiltersguildnsw.com/"><img src="http://www.quiltersguildnsw.com/QS2007/QS2007logodatetn.JPG" alt="Sydney Quilt Show 2007" /></a>

The button should look like this:

Please contact the Guild Webmaster if you require assistance.