The corner block I finished in February was exhausting (mostly due to the appliquéd stars). It was a relief to pick a block where 100% of the pieces could be cut out with a rotary cutter. And even with 28 tiny pieces, the block went together easily in a couple of weekend afternoons. Since this block was so simple to assemble, I’m going to use this blog article to talk about something else: how awesome my quilt guild is.

In the olden days before the pandemic, there was a lot more going on at quilt guild meetings than just the meetings. There were opportunities before and after the meeting to chat with other members, pick up or drop off charity quilt kits, check out books from the guild’s library, or dig for treasure at the scrap table.

One of my favorite guild extras is that scrap exchange: a large table in the middle of the library where people can drop off smallish pieces of fabric that they’re no longer enamored of, and pick up other people’s smallish pieces of fabric that enchant them.

Since I prefer scrappy quilts and mostly just need small pieces of any one fabric, and since modern fabrics are super popular these days, I find a lot of small bits of traditional/reproduction fabrics that are hard to find in stores anymore. I’ve definitely missed the scrap table – it was a major factor motivating me to drive the 15+ miles to meetings.

Last Spring, once it became apparent that the pandemic was going to last more than a few weeks, our excellent guild leaders sprung into action, offering virtual meetings and workshops to keep members engaged. Which was neat, but Zoom was missing those serendipitous opportunities of the in-person meetings.

Over the next few months, the guild started offering virtual social hours, as well as a monthly parking lot event where members could pick up and drop off charity quilt kits and library books. Best of all, the scrap table was resurrected (although in a slightly different form) at these parking lot events.

Still, it took me almost six months to manage to drive down to one of the events (I had some fabric to donate for making charity quilts) … and I arrived just a few minutes after the scrap table person had packed up the scraps and gone home.

This month, I finally made it to a parking lot event on time and was able to experience the pandemic scrap “table” (it’s really just a bunch of plastic bins arranged on the ground in the parking lot) for the first time. It definitely confirmed that old saying that one quilter’s trash is another quilter’s treasure … isn’t that how the saying goes?

I scored a decent-sized piece of this fabric, which is brown (one of my favorite colors) and is a leaf print (one of my favorite patterns). The leaves are made up of paisleys (you guessed it – also one of my favorites), which are in turn made up of flowers. It’s like the turducken of fabric prints and I’m completely fascinated by it.

Best of all, the parking lot scrap table experience facilitated some of those serendipitous opportunities that one would usually find only at in-person meetings.

There was a woman at the scrap table interested in pink Civil War fabrics (which I happen to have, and do not treasure since I’m not a big fan of pink). After I got home, I posted some photos of my pink Civil War fabrics on the guild’s Facebook group for that member, which led to an offer of other Civil War fabrics from another guild member, which led to a request from a third guild member for directional Civil War fabrics (I had some that fit the bill) … and long story short, we’re all meeting up at next month’s event to swap our fabric “trash” for “treasures”.

And that third guild member has become my new friend Izumi. I love how quilt guild (and quilting itself!) brings people together. She and I have been chatting online about fabrics and a few days ago, she surprised me with hand-delivered green fabrics from her stash that she thought might work for my Dear Jane (and they will – I’m so excited to work them into the quilt. Thanks, Izumi!).

Ironically, I’m finding that I’m more involved with the guild now than I was when it was all held in person. It’s so much easier to attend events when you only have to walk to the other end of the house instead of driving 15 miles. This year, I even went to the (virtual) quilt show preview party for the first time in over a decade.

My group of hand quilters continues to meet virtually once a month. And in place of in-person quilting retreats, the ladies I usually retreat with have held a couple of virtual Zoom retreats, which have evolved over time into weekly virtual sew-ins.

With all this virtual quilting time, I outdid myself on the UFO Challenge for March. Despite only finishing this one Dear Jane block during the month, I did extra motifs on my wholecloth quilt (4 leaves and 3 berries). And not only did I sew another row on the rainbow quilt, but we also laid out the pieces for the last two rows of the quilt.

Unfortunately, April’s UFO Challenge is not going as well. Here we are with just a few days left in the month, and I have not completed any of the three parts of my challenge. I’ve hand quilted a measly two leaves and am continuing to labor on a single Dear Jane block that is giving me fits. Here’s hoping the last five days of the month are more productive than the first twenty-five.