Community Giving has had a very active month.  On March 13 we donated 23 more twin size quilts to the YMCA Supportive Housing for Young Adults, 70 placemats and 2 large bags of personal care items went to Meals-on-wheels, 30 pillowcases and personal care products to the Youth Emergency Shelter (YEss) and a very large bag of pop tops to Ronald McDonald House.  As Sandy said, "Isn't it a beautiful day for giving?"  And it was.

At the March general meetings we collected 30 pieced tops, 5 self-binding receiving blanket, a large flannel blanket, 11 burp cloths, 21 completed quilts which include:  3 vets quilts, 4 tied baby quilts, a large kid's quilt 11 throw/twin size and 2 queen size quilts.  We also collected 26 placemats and 14 pillowcases. The pillowcases will be used to start the drive for the Million Pillowcase collection that supports our May speaker.

Twelve tops to piece kits were checked out at the March meeting and 15 tops, batting, and back kits were taken to quilt.

We will have at least 20 more kits of top, batting, and back available to check out at our April meeting.  We are really impressed with straight lines.  We appreciated vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.  If you want to meander, we are OK with that also but what we really want is something that will hold the batting in place when it is washed and hugged. We have some requests for quilts to bind.  We were a little short last month and maybe this month too but hang on cause when these quilted tops start coming in those of you that like to bind will be really busy.

We want to give our warmest thanks to the following people who donated their time and talents to complete projects for the March meeting: Leigh Lussie, Linda Mould, Phyllis Blood, Helen Smith, Mary E. Booth, Colleen Linkin, Susan Corbett, Sue McMain, Judy D'Iapico, Linda Wilkinson, Karen Spencer, Rhonda Saylor, Sherry Street, Jill Pickett, Jo Anne Schnebly, Bonnie Hamling, Gloria Overson, Shirley Loeffler, Mildred Agena,Jan McLaughlin, Dianne Melendez (Patch Work Pals), Alene Baily, Genevieve Gunderman, Norma Hamilton, Doris Rumpp, JoAnn Belling, Margaret Simons, Carol S. Noyes, Sue Guess, Michele Sparks, and anonymous.

- Sandy Lanning and Terry Holt, Community Giving Chairs

Our annual Community Service Day was held on National Quilting Day, Saturday, March 21 at the West Des Moines library.

We were  excited to have 23 members participate.  These included:  Kris Peterson, Karen Macon, Carol and Nyah Noyes, Linda Bergeson, Phyllis Blood, Joan Rotert, Judy D'Iapico, Sue McCain, Marales Kruse, Jane Barnes, Sandy Lanning, Terry Holt, Barb Anderson, Michele Sparks, Chris Patrick, Jean McLaughlin, Danille Wagner, Carolyn Hosier, Jan Stump, Linda Wilknson, Sharon Meisenhiemer, and Cindy Ohmart.

This group cut strips, pillow case and quilt top kits until their fingers were too sore to do more. These women walked in and said, "Tell me what to do," and they did it most of the day!

They cut 60 pillowcase kits, made 10 pillow cases, cut strips for the fair quilts, cut blocks for quilt top kits, and worked on their personal community outreach projects. Then they help clean up, put away, and carry to cars.  What a fantastic group!

The theme for this year's AQS/DMAQG fall Special Guild Exhibit is "Building Friendships Through Quilting".  We are inviting each Small Group to help us highlight the work, fun, accomplishments and play of their small groups.  Ellen Kelly Smith is the contact person for the Special Exhibit and will be in touch with a representative of your small group about being part of our exhibit. 

We hope you will share stories of your group and display group projects. We have heard that many of you have made some type of friendship quilt, round Robin Quilt or challenge quilt and we would love to have examples of this work for the display. We will be asking for some quilts to display at the show as well as photos and a few stories (humorous or otherwise)from your group. The committee will help with the display poster for each group so that the exhibit is coordinated. 

We will need the name of your small group, along with a list of its members and a contact name and phone number. Please talk about this at your next small group meeting and be prepared to provide the information listed above by the end of April. We welcome your ideas on how to highlight the wonderful friendships that develop through our quilting together. Start talking. We know you'll have great ideas.

Please email Ellen Smith your small group members and the contact phone number.  Ellen's phone numbers are (home) 515-279-2218 and (call) 515-443-3001. Looking forward to hearing from you during the next month. 

We are "Building" a great quilt show for you this year. We wanted to provide you with several dates you may want to add to your calendar.

May 26	Quilt Show Entry for will be up on the Website
July 28	Quilt Show Entries are due.
July 29	Volunteer Sign up begins
Sept 17-24	Judged Quilts are due. Turn in sites to be announced at a later date
Sept 17-26	Non-Judged Quits are due.  Turn in site to be announced at a later date
Sept 28	Quilt Show Set Up begins
Sept 30-Oct 3	"Building Friendships Through Quilting" Quilt Show at the Iowa Events Center

We urge everyone to continue working on their quilts for the show. You may want to work on a small quilt as a donation for the Little Quilt silent auction. This is one of our largest fundraisers for the guild. Let's make it an outstanding year.

We were happy to see a few more of you browsing in the library in March. Hope you will keep it up. Remember that books checked out are due back the next month. If you need to keep them longer, please let us know.
 
Three new books were donated to the library in April:
                Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett
                The Jane Austen Quilt Club by Ann Hazelwood (fiction)
                The Quilt Walk by Sandra Dallas
 
The price on the sale books put out in January has been reduced! There will also be some new books put on the sale table in April.
 
Sherry Baze, DMAQG Librarian