Mary Anne's Floral Portrait Class

I have used my Embellisher for a couple of years and have mostly made small abstract designs. Mary Anne Griffin offered a class project which was much more realistic than intuitive and it was a great challenge for me. Using beautiful wools, velvets, and silks provided in our kit, we all set about "pounding" fabric. And what a racket! Embellishers are not quiet!

(Photo above shows Mary Anne demonstrating a technique to the class.)

Mary Anne is such a good communicator and teacher that it was easy to follow her instructions to make the portrait. She even provided complete instructions, including photos on a cd that was part of our kit.

I made good progress on my Floral Portrait in class, but just got tired and pooped out. It was the last day of the retreat and I had partied too hard. (I wish!)

International Crazy Quilters Guild yahoo group

To participate in a discussion of the formation of the International Crazy Quilters Guild, join this list. I am not trying to set myself up as an authority, or even a leader. A number of people think it's time that we had a member organization with an international reach.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/international-crazy-quilters-guild

Meeting of Nancy Kirk and volunteers

Now this was an interesting event, which has lots of people stirred up!

Nancy Kirk, who started the Crazy Quilt Society in the late 90's and has continued to run it as a non-profit organziation, invited "serious" volunteers to attend a lunch meeting to talk about the future of the CQ Society.

She explained that she no longer wishes to be involved in the running of the Society, and she introduced Karen Snyder Downs as her chosen replacement. This was quite a surprise because Karen is unknown in the CQS, at least to many of the people at the meeting.

Nancy explained to the group that the CQS is operated as a 501 c 3 non-profit organization. If you want to learn more about 501 c 3's, you can read about them on Wikipedia. She recommended that the group not start a new organization, but leave the CQS as is, under the umbrella of the Quilt Heritage Foundation. Nancy also reported to the group that the organization owes her about $11,000 due to years when there were losses.

Several people expressed a desire to volunteer to see that the Society continues, but no plans were made at the meeting for further collaboration.

After the meeting, various questions began to rear their heads, and those will have to be addressed before much forward movement can begin.

• Is there a paper trail supporting the Society's indebtedness to Nancy? Most of the people that I heard from want to do the right thing and compensate her for at least part of her loss, but no one has ever seen the Society's books.
• What do the Society's by-laws say about the board of directors? Right now Nancy is the only person on the board.
• What do the Society's by-laws say about election of officers? Does a board of one have the authority to appoint a new director, or does an election have to occur?
• What happens to the scholarship money? Is it held in an escrow account from year to year or is it used for the Society's operating expenses?
• These are just some of the areas that need to be cleared up.
  

This is a tough time for the CQS. I like and respect Nancy, and I am grateful to her for keeping the CQS going for at least 12 years. Some of these questions and actions that might arise from the answers may not be everyone's liking. I hope we can have good will towards each other and toward the Society, keeping in mind that we all have the same goal: to keep the Society alive and growing!