Newsletter

Did you miss the newsletter or accidentally delete it? Below are the two most recent newsletters sent out to members.

Sept. 15, 2026

Hello quilters!

Fall (and fall quilting) is almost here! We have a couple of busy months ahead, so please read carefully.  (No secret word this month, since I'll be absent Saturday, but I trust you to please read all of this.)

Sept. 19 meeting features Robert James Bosscher on Zoom

Our meeting this Saturday kicks off at 10:30 a.m. at Meissner Sacramento. (Come at 10 a.m. for social and set-up.) The program features a Zoom discussion with quilt artist and teacher Robert James Bosscher.

Bosscher earned his degree in studio art and art history, with a concentration in ceramics, but after college the reality of the cost and the scarcity of studio space moved him to find another medium. His current passion is fiber and textile art. (His mother was a quilter, btw.) In this discussion he will explore the dynamic influences reshaping the modern quilt movement -- from upcycled materials and nontraditional fabrics to paint, printmaking, narrative storytelling and activist quilts.

Bosscher this year also initiated the "Behind the Scenes" series of QuiltCon on-the-floor tours focused on Modern Design. Find more about him at rjbosscher.com or on Instagram @rjbosscher

Bring in your QuiltCon Community Outreach Blocks

Stephanie Fox will collect blocks from members who accepted the block kits at the August meeting. We are working on getting an assembly sew day scheduled in October.

Update: Block Lotto (pumpkin block) postponed to November

Christine and Sue are both having a mega-busy year, and decided to delay the latest Block Lotto deadline to the November meeting. That gives everyone two more months to make some of those adorable pumpkin blocks. Find the pattern here.

Challenge # 3 to be revealed

Debra Thompsen will unveil the next (optional) challenge for guild members. Think small! Details will be posted on the website after the meeting.

News: October park meeting and a weekday outreach event

We have a new park site for the Saturday, Oct. 17, Quilts in the Park meeting! This year reserving a park has been a challenge. But thanks to the Sacramento County Master Gardener program, we will meet at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, their demonstration garden, in the front portion that is open daily to the public. The FOHC is immediately next to Fair Oaks Park, which is on Fair Oaks Boulevard just south of Madison Avenue. This area is not a grass park but a mostly shady site with concrete pathways, several patios and many lovingly tended planting areas. Plenty of room for our pop-ups, and plenty of parking.

As part of this arrangement with the master gardeners, we have agreed to bring a pop-up, some quilts and other guild information to their Wednesday, Oct. 14, Open Garden Day, which runs from 9 a.m. to noon. On Open Garden Days, the master gardeners welcome the public to the entire FOHC, including the back area where vegetables, orchard fruit, herbs, grapes and berries are grown. This collaboration is designed to expand the outreach both for our guild and for the master gardeners. (Did you know that 4 guild members are master gardeners, including myself?)

So we need quilts and pop-ups for Oct. 17, and volunteers and quilts for Oct. 14!

We'll have other details on the Oct.17 meeting toward the end of this month, but start planning now which quilt(s) to bring to hang. It does not have to be a new make. 

Also, anyone who can bring a pop-up to use at the park meeting, please let Vice President Hedy Henderson know Saturday. The more we have, the more quilts we can hang! 

For Oct. 14, if you can contribute an hour or more to set up, staff the booth or lend a modern quilt to display, or all of those, please email me (Kathy H) at social@sacmqg.com. I anticipate that 3 to 5 quilters besides myself will be needed to answer questions about our guild and modern quilts in general. 

And it's election season!

Guild elections, of course. My term as Director of Communications/Social is coming to an end, and I would love to hand this role off to someone as info-obsessed as I am. Please message me separately if you are interested! I will train you!

(Also, I'm sorry to have to miss this Saturday's meeting, but I will be able to see email and get messages while I'm traveling.)

Thanks for reading to the end!

Kathy Hellesen

Communications/Social

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Sept. 9, 2026 -- Interim newsletter

Hi, folks, our next meeting isn't until Sept. 19, but we have LOTS going on right now, so this is an early reminder. Please read!

-- Start deciding now which quilt(s) you want to bring to hang at the Oct. 17 Quilts in the Park meeting. They can be any quilt you want to share, doesn't have to be a new make. We can't share all the details on this year's outdoor location just yet, but can say it will be in Fair Oaks.

--We will need POP-UPS too, of course, to hang them on. (See photo on the home page of our website.) Anyone who has loaned theirs before, it would be great if you could bring them again this year! (Plan on bringing a camp chair or other seating, too.) It's going to be a fun meeting!

-- There are still a few sewing room spaces at the Oct. 22-25 retreat in Chico. Did you know you can sew there for just the day? Virginia says there are 2 spaces on Thursday, 1 each on Friday and Saturday, and 4 on Sunday (which is a half-day).

-- If you accepted a QuiltCon Community Outreach block kit last meeting, bring the finished blocks to the Sept. 19 meeting, or contact Stephanie Fox to find out how to get them to her another way. We're working on setting up a sew day for assembly in October.

-- Block Lotto blocks, the cute pumpkin design, also are due this month. Follow this link for the pattern: https://hello.sacmqg.com/challenge-and-block-lotto

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Aug. 13, 2026

Hello, quilters!

Been a busy summer, hasn't it? This newsletter and meeting reminder is coming to you a bit later than normal, thanks to some unforeseen interruptions. But I hope you have time to attend this month's meeting, this Saturday, Aug. 15, at Meissner's Sacramento store. Social time starts at 10 a.m. with programming and activities beginning at 10:30.

Come early to help us set up chairs if you are able. We’ve got some special things planned! 

Our packed agenda starts off with:

Trunk show with Shashari Kiburi

Visual artist and educator Shashari Kiburi, based in Sacramento, will talk about her quilting journey and present an in-person trunk show of her work. 

As a child she felt a deep connection to creating. Growing up in a sewing household, she sat by her mom’s sewing machine often, pulling the pins out of fabric as her mother made many of the clothes she and her siblings wore. While studying Anthropology at UC Berkeley, she had the opportunity to learn printmaking. This work inspired a deep passion for abstract art and eventually led to using fiber as a medium for storytelling. 

Shashari’s work in quilting came about in 2012 when her children were young. It was a medium that she could fit into her busy life as a mother of four children. She was able to seamlessly apply her practice in drawing and printmaking with textiles. Drawing upon her ancestry she also dyes indigo and other natural dyes on fabric as a foundation for her quiltmaking. Indigo puts her voice into each quilt and helps to close the gaps between her ancestors’ past and the present. She has shown work at the Ontario museum and Marin Museum of contemporary art to name a few. She is working on her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Art and her quilts will be featured at Black Nexus art week in San Francisco this October. 

Block Lotto and Community Quilt blocks

It's time to turn in Block Lotto blocks -- those cute sun blocks will be collected and one lucky member will take them home. The Block Lotto instructions are on the website here -- you still have time to make one! Christine Westbrook and Sue Klabunde have another Block Lotto block to reveal, as well!.

It's also time to turn in the latest Community Quilt blocks. Julia's fun block for the community quilts is detailed here.

This month's secret word is cinnamon. Get a drawing ticket when you tell it at the check-in desk.

QuiltCon Community Outreach Quilt is a go!

Inspired by the MQG's 2027 Community Outreach Quilt theme of HSTs (half-square triangles), member Stephanie Fox has designed a quilt for us to put together.  It is planned to be hung at QuiltCon in Atlanta next February. Stephanie will have kits to hand out for members who wish to participate.

Speaking of fabric, we're having a sale

The guild recently received a large donation of quality stash and scraps to raise money for our programs budget. The fabric includes 1-yard cuts (including out-of-print pieces), curated bags of small cuts, some large bundles of prints, and many small bundles of solids. They will be available for purchase before and after the meeting. Priced to move. Cash, checks, cards and Venmo accepted.

Also ...

The Guild Library will be open for this meeting, and of course we will have Show and Tell, so bring your recent makes. Sorry, NO Free Table this month, to avoid confusion with the fundraising sale. It will return at the September meeting.

Thanks, everyone. Hope to see you Saturday!

Kathy Hellesen

Communications/Social

Sacramento Modern Quilt Guild

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July 16, 2026

Hello, quilters!

Here's hoping you're staying cool. An extra-hot day is a great excuse to stay inside and sew -- rather like a snow day, but in shorts and sandals.

This Saturday, July 18, is our July meeting. As usual, it starts at 10:30 a.m. at Meissner's; doors open at 10 a.m. for set-up and socializing. We have a PACKED agenda for this meeting:

Zoom program with Cindy Grisdela

Quilt artist and teacher Cindy Grisdela will present "Anatomy of an Improv Quilt" via Zoom. Here's how she describes her work: "Color and texture are the driving forces behind my contemporary art quilts. Browse my site (https://cindygrisdela.com/) to see how I combine line and shape, then add stitching lines to create texture and dimension – a process I like to think of as painting with fabric and thread." Her new solo show, "Shape Shifting," opened this month at the Reston Art Gallery & Studio in Reston, Va.

Cindy's also teaching an online workshop for us, "Artful Improv Medallion," on Sunday, Aug. 2, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. As of this week, there were still 6 spaces available in the class, Events director Virginia Hass reports. For information or to sign up for the class, go here.

Bylaws vote

The recruitment timeline revision that was discussed and tabled at the June meeting has been rewritten to clarify, then was reviewed and approved by the SacMQG board. The membership vote on this change will be held during Saturday's meeting. The full text is at the bottom of this newsletter.

The Orphan Block Challenge (Challenge #2)

Debra Thompsen says she can't wait to see what everyone has come up with! If you are participating in turning "before" blocks into something different, bring your "after" project to the meeting. (Note: It can be a flimsy instead of a completed quilt, or something else entirely!) 

If you photographed the contents of the "before" bag, you can send the photo to Debra at thompsens@comcast.net

Block Lotto blocks due

The tulip blocks will be collected Saturday by coordinators Christine Westbrook and Sue Klabunde, and the drawing held for the lucky recipient. If you still would like to make 1 or more blocks, the directions are on the website here. Each block = one ticket for the drawing. (The next Block Lotto block already is posted; the sun blocks will be due in August.)

Quilts for Kids

Coordinator Rhonda Burnett reminds us that July is a Quilts For Kids (QFK) pick-up month. This includes the collection of finished quilts with QFK labels and batting/fabric scraps. All scraps need to be in a closed bag that is clearly marked as scraps. Scrap donations are used for making animal pet beds or crumb quilts.

We are currently looking for a long-armer to finish one throw-size quilt. If you can help, check in with Rhonda or Debra at the meeting break. Labels will also be available at Saturday’s meeting if you have run out or need to grab a few for next time.

If you have never sewn a project quilt for QFK, you can find more details on the Sac MQG website. We are out of free QFK kits at this time but will have some orphan blocks at the pick-up station which could be used as a starting point if you want to be creative and use your stash. First come first serve.

The next pick up of finished quilts will be at the October meeting. 

Community quilt blocks

The improv blocks will be collected to make bright children's quilts for charity. Julia Smith heads this project. See the instructions on this page of the website.

The secret word this month is penguin. Say it at the check-in desk and receive a ticket for the month's prize drawing.

Speaking of Community Quilts ...

If any member is interested in heading up (or co-heading) the creation of the guild's Community Outreach Challenge quilt for QuiltCon 2027, speak up now! Email President Laura-Beth Thrasher at president@sacmqg.com or speak to her before the meeting Saturday. The entry period opens Sept.1. More information is on the QuiltCon website here.

And the usual!

The library, the free table and Show and Tell also will be part of the meeting. Bring your latest makes to show the other members.

And if you know a member who is not receiving this newsletter, please tell them it will be posted on the website, too. Spam filters are blocking it from some members' in-boxes, we learned.

See you Saturday!

Kathy Hellesen

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Here is the amendment on Executive Board Elections and Recruitment that will be put to a vote Saturday:

Executive Board Recruitment and Elections

During the months of July, August, and September, the Executive Board will actively recruit volunteers to serve on the following year’s Executive Board. Throughout this recruitment period, members will be notified of upcoming Executive Board vacancies and encouraged to consider serving. Members interested in running for an Executive Board position are encouraged to notify the Director of Membership during this recruitment period so they may be included in the announced slate of candidates.

The slate of candidates will be presented to the membership prior to the election. The election of Executive Board members will take place at the October general membership meeting.

Additional nominations may be made from the floor at the October meeting by any eligible member. Eligible members may also vote for a write-in candidate for any office. All nominees, whether included in the announced slate, nominated from the floor, or written in by a member, must meet the eligibility requirements established in these Bylaws.

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