Sierra Mountain Quilters Association

Preteen Mentoring Program held at the Oakhurst Library

A message from our President, Sue Johnson

Ring out the old, bring in the new! It promises to
be an exciting year for our guild! We’ll be doing
some restructuring with the new budget, bringing
more of our programs in house instead of bringing
in as many outside experts, AND it’s a quilt show
year!! Maria has been doing a great job of keeping
everything on track, with her whole committee
doing their jobs to prepare for a great show. I for
one, can’t wait! Since I don’t have much to say this
month, I thought I’d pass along some New Year’s
inspirational quotes.
• You are never too old to set another goal or to
dream a new dream. —C.S. Lewis
• Every year you make a resolution to change
yourself. This year make a resolution to be
yourself. —Unknown
• Cheers to the people who love us, the losers who
lost us, and the lucky ones who still get to meet
us. —Unknown
• May all your troubles last as long as your New
Year’s resolutions. —Joey Adams

Message from 1st VP Joan Earnest

It's not even Christmas as I'm writing this, but let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! I'm brand new to this position and pretty overwhelmed right now with all there is to do. But I love our guild and want to do whatever I can to keep us going. We just had a wonderful Winter Luncheon at Bee's Bakery. The food was great and the ambiance was delightful. Sally and Lynn did a wonderful job of decorating for our enjoyment. The parade of Mystery Quilts was really impressive. Teri De La Torre did a fantastic job of installing all of our new officers and gave us candy!! And of course, Show and Tell is the best. The next year will be challenging with the budget cuts we are having to abide by, but hopefully we will be able to find ways to entertain ourselves at little cost to the guild. I have some ideas about programs and maybe even workshops that can be done by our own guild members! My favorite part of our guild meeting is the Show and Tell portion. So why not expand on that? If you would like to do a little trunk show of your beautiful quilts or even of your duds, I would love to hear from you. The Madera guild calls it Hidden Gems. I know many of you have interesting projects for us to see. It would also be delightful if some members would offer to teach a workshop. We have the first few months of programs worked out and will hopefully fill the whole year in soon. I guess it’s time to get to work on 2025 now!!

I Found a Quilted Heart

Our Winter Luncheon decorations included quilted hearts hung from Manzanita centerpieces. These hearts were lovingly made by the Footloose sewing circle, and was a project originally started by Chris Hudson. When we were gifted a box of Christmas ornaments cut out from an old quilt by Chris, including hearts, one of our sewing circle members suggested making hearts for the I found a Quilted Heart project.

At the end of the luncheon, attendees were given a meaningful mission: to take one of these hearts and "plant" it in the community for someone else to find. This simple act of sharing not only spreads the warmth of our quilting community but also brightens someone else’s day with an unexpected, heartfelt surprise. Chris would be pleased.