Meetings and Activities

Activities/Meetings

Our guild meets every third Saturday of the month, year round. We meet at the North Hampton Community Center, Macon Road and Todds Lane in the rear of Jefferson Davis Middle School Hampton, Va.

Meeting Agenda includes:

Business - 10 to 11 a.m.
Perspective New Members are welcome at 11:15 a.m.
Show and Tell, Socializing and Workshops

                                                                                     Mar 08 Newsletter
                                                               Guild Workshop at Hampton University

Community involvement has always been an important part of our activities. In this regard, the Guild was recently invited to participate in several activities:

            In March, the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind invited the 54-40 to participate in a program titled “A Taste of Culture". In addition to ethnic foods the program included entertainment by the Pamojadada African Dancers who ranged in age from about 7 to 12 . They were great. There was storytelling; drumming, poetry, and a head wrap demonstration. One of the highlights of the show was seeing members of 54-40 on the dance floor dancing to the drummers beat!!! Participating in this event was an excellent opportunity to do something for the community. Guild members attending the event were Delilah Armstrong, Aretha Henderson, Yvette Maynard, Sandra Randolph, Gwen Sinclair, Eva Washington, Brenda West, and Carol Williams.

            In May, we participated in the Gosport Art Show and street Festival in Portsmouth , VA. The event took place over Mothers Day weekend. (12-13 May) During the weekend of (25–26 May) we were invited to return to Portsmouth to participate in a similar festival. This event was a part of the Jamestown 400 Festival. Guild members manned tables, passed out brochures, displayed quilts and responded to questions from attendees while promoting the art of quilting. Those in attendance were JoAnne Cramatie, Pat Johnson, Edna Jackson, Brenda West, Vikki Bell, Gladys Hayes, Lillian Thomas and an unnamed member.

            The days that Brenda worked she set up a portable sewing machine and arranging quilts for display. She also worked on a project and explained to passersby the process of choosing a pattern, fabric, washing it if for a large project verses a wall hanging, choosing color and finally cutting and assembling the completed project. She explained the techniques used and then demonstrated on the machine string piecing as well as appliqué and hand piecing.

            On the second weekend she let the viewers hand sew a 4 patch 8x8 square in red ,black, green colors. About 12-14 children and adults took part in the project. There was an arrangement of the tools used in quilting thimbles, rulers, thread, scissors, cutting mats, needles and finished blocks.

            During 2007 an ongoing project for each Guild member is to make wheelchair bags and walker totes for the elderly in one of our local nursing homes. This is a large home and they need about one hundred of each.

Other Activities include workshops conducted by different members. We have been invited to public schools to talk about quilting as an art form, to teach it's history and talk about our workshops. We have been invited to display our quilts and talk about quilting history at various tidewater area festivals and events.

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This page was last updated on: Friday, March 14, 2008