Chatter Reports
April 2024
by Jane Wilcox
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If April showers bring May flowers, what do April snowstorms bring? NEW members for our Strawberry Patchers. In the past 6 months, we welcomed Suzanne Dobbs, Deb Caldwell, Nikie Lopez, Debbie Astrada, Gail Hewlett, Toni Miller, Lynn Ramsey, Barbara Santopadre, Maryellen Swanson and Kassi White to our chapter! Always such a joy to have new members bringing great ideas and creativity to our circle!
We are working diligently through May tying up all the loose ends for our Quilt Show in June. The theme, “Every Quilt Tells a Story” is presented by Uncle Tom’s Kwik Stop and The Strawberry Inn. Show dates are Friday & Saturday, June 7th, and 8th – doors open at 9am and close at 4pm. We do hope you’ll make it to Pine/Strawberry for our annual display of Viewer’s Choice Quilts. Voting is on Friday only, winners announced on Saturday. This year, we are going to be doing a bed turning, along with other demonstrations and we have some outstanding special exhibits. Be sure to bring your money, you’ll want to visit our vendors!
We always have room for more members. The Patchers are a very active chapter and we invite you to join us the first Thursday of the month for our business meeting. Coffee and goodies at 9am, meeting starts at 9:30am. The third Thursday of the month is reserved for members only. We have sew days or programs, demonstrations, lectures - we’re always learning something! If you’re interested in joining us, visit www.strawberrypatchers.com!
Have a safe and wonderful Summer!
March 2024
by Jane Wilcox
The month of February is always a busy one for the Patchers! We designate every Thursday in February to work on community projects. The goal is to make Easter bags and Christmas stockings for the children. It’s sew much fun to make these, knowing that the kids love them! Thanks to all that participated, we exceeded our goal, and now have a surplus!! This wraps up another productive February for the Strawberry Patchers!
The Show Committee for the Strawberry Patcher Quilt Show is actively working on 2024. The theme this year is “Every Quilt Tells a Story”. We have planned a bed turning of antique & vintage quilts. Each one will have a story behind it. More than just antique quilts, even the quilts we make today all have a story about it. It takes a village to present our little show! There are vendors, door prizes, and drawings every 30 minutes for great prizes. We feature small displays throughout the show area that are informative and visually appealing. Additionally, we collect food for the food bank; and if you bring a can of food, you’re entered to win a lap quilt.
The real purpose of this show is to showcase some of the most beautiful quilts around Rim Country from Payson, Strawberry, Pine, and Happy Jack… however; all are more than welcome to enter our Viewer’s Choice Show! We’ll be accepting entries on this website beginning April 8th, and entries closing on May 8th. Physical Intake will be at the Community Center in Pine on Thursday, June 6th. Make note that the show dates are Friday, June 7th through Saturday, June 8th, 9 am - 4 pm both days. Viewer’s Choice voting is only on Friday. It makes for a wonderful day trip up to the mountains! Admission is $5.00.
Many of the Patchers are excited about our annual retreat/camp in March. Our retreat consists of sewing, learning, laughing, fun and games. Indeed it is something we look forward to every year. And, of course- What happens at Quilt Camp, Stays at Quilt Camp!
We invite you to join us on the first Thursday of the month – 9:00 am social time, 9:30 is meeting time at the Pine Community Center in the Library Annex. The 3rd Thursday of the month is reserved for members. We use this day for activities, classes, sewing & learning.
I am Ivar the Viking Gnome and I bring you greetings from Maureen Pastika's Quilting Studio.
Mike Pastika made me for one purpose: guarding quilts is my life!
Maureen with a 'paper piece.'
February 2024
by Jane Wilcox
Old Man Winter wasted no time in January, bringing loads of snow to Pine/Strawberry! What’s a girl to do… sew, we held our monthly meeting the first Thursday of the month, and many managed to get there!
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Many Thanks were sent to the Patchers for our charitable funding from donations in December. Jackie Smith, our Correspondence Chair, also ready four thank you’s for comfort quilts sent out. Our Comfort Quilt program is a huge success. We happily received our AQG Mini Grant (Thank you very much, AQG) and our Country Store made the goal that Kris Lovetro aimed for in 2023!!
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We want to welcome Carol Baxter as our new Website designer. Through her creative endeavors, we’ve been able to present a wonderful on-line presence! It’s just in time for our Annual Strawberry Patcher Quilt Show in June, too!
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Major Kudos to Kathy Hunt, Lori Omart and Tamara Morken for their work for our Christmas Party! We have outgrown the back room at the Brewery, and are searching for a new location for our 2024 party!
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February we will gear up for more community sew days making Christmas stockings and Easter Bags. The 22nd, Leslie Peacock will be demonstrating paper piecing. We have a leap year in 2024, the final Thursday, February 29th we’ll leap onto something fun I’m sure!
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If you would like to join us for our business meeting, we meet the first Thursday of the month at the Library Annex building on the Pine Community Center complex. 9:00 is coffee and snacks and the meeting begins at 9:30am. Sew days on the 3rd Thursday of the month are for members only, but we will happily reserve a spot for you for joining our chapter!
December Report for January ~ Submitted by Jane Wilcox
Happy New Year!? Is it ME, or have these past few months absolutely flown by In the wink of an eye? We rang in the holiday season with our annual Christmas Party and Dirty Santa gift exchange. Many thanks to Strawberry Patcher member Tamara Morkken for the use of her back room at “THAT” Brewery and Pub. The food was amazing thanks to Kathy Hunt and Lori Ohmart, and of course, the company was delightful!!! The gifts brought for the ‘Dirty Santa” gift exchange were all so wonderful, and no one walked away disappointed.
We’re gearing up to send out our charitable donations and are excited about all the ones we were able to assist this year! Due to the sales from our Country Store, and our Annual Quilt show, we were able to disperse 7,000.00 to Rim Country Charities that are so deserving. This year we donated to the following:
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Lacy Oldland Scholarship
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Pine/Strawberry Food Bank
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Pine /Strawberry Elementary School
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Payson School District
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The Central Arizona Humane Society
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The Pine/Strawberry Historical Society
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Payson Community Kids
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Time Out Women’s Shelter
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Dueker Ranch
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Katie’s Closet
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NAMI Payson
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Isabelle Hunt Library
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Whispering Hope Ranch
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PHHVI (The Warming Center, Payson)
January will be the start of our year for all our activities planned, mostly starting with our June Quilt Show. We are looking forward to our stay- at-home “camp” in February (AKA, Sew Days) and our Quilt Camp in Prescott coming in March.
If you’d like to join us at our January meeting, it is the first Thursday of the month. We start at 9:00 a.m. for social time, 9:30 is the meeting – held in the Library Activity Room at the Community Center in Pine. We always welcome guests! Our 2nd Thursday is for members only. We hope you’ll join so you can have fun, also! The photos are of our Christmas Party.
Happy New Year to All!
November, 2023 ~ Submitted by Jane Wilcox The frost didn’t land on the pumpkin this Halloween, however, the Strawberry Patchers had a Spooktacular October with our Charity Sew Days, managing to meet our goal of putting together 70 quilt tops, backings & bindings for our comfort quilt program. Whew! It was scary how efficient we all buzzed around and got this accomplished! We started out the first weekend in November with the Rim Country Quilt Roundup Show, and what a show it was! It was the largest one to date, with almost 180 entries. Special exhibits, lectures, demonstrations and vendors supported the show and for 2 days such fun!! Many Many kudos to Maureen Pastika, President of Rim Country Quilt Round Up, and to the Board for putting together such a wonderful display for all to enjoy! I’d like to elaborate now on our other fundraising section: The Strawberry Patchers Country Store, Spearheaded by Kris Lovetro. It is hard to believe that what began as selling face masks during the pandemic, mushroomed into a full-blown store! We all contribute to it, and people love to purchase our zipper bags, mug rugs, cup holders, sewing machine pads, table runners, bag holders – if we can make it, people will buy it! Kris and helpers set up the store for the craft fairs in Pine/Strawberry, art shows, and our quilt shows. We all work hard making sure that it is stocked well with products. And, it is wonderful to have such a fabulous assortment of great things that are hand made, and look awesome! Thank you to Kris for doing such a bang up job making our store work well for us so we can support our charities. As it’s the end of the year, we are still welcoming new members and guests to our meetings (The first Thursday of the month) and we hope all members join us for our Sew Days on the 3rd Thursday of the month. In December, we will have our annual Christmas party, and it’s always special to have this get together so we can toast another great year behind us and looking forward to a new one ahead. If you’d like to join us, please visit: www.strawberrypatchers.com We have a VERY active chapter and ALWAYS have fun!
October, 2023 ~ Submitted by Jane Wilcox Do you believe in the power of healing energy? That a quilt, sewn together with love, quilted with love, bound with love and gifted with love can create enough healing energy that it HELPS someone? The Strawberry Patchers certainly do, which is why our Comfort Quilt Program is so incredibly successful. I’d like to take a paragraph or two to let you all know what makes our program so successful, and has forever endeared us into the hearts of the communities of Pine/Strawberry & Payson – not to mention throughout the country. In October, we have 3 consecutive days where we bring our machines, and sew like crazy. We finish quilt kits that members put together for us. Constructing borders, bindings, backings, and write on a card what the dimensions are so our long arm quilters that volunteer their time, know what they are looking at for size. Thanks to the mini grant AQG provides for the applicants – we are able to purchase enough batting to make a LOT of our quilts. Most of the fabric we use is donated. We are able to purchase fabric bolts that are on sale due to the quilt show we hold every year. And, members put together pre-cut quilt kits with a pattern included to make. These come in plastic bags and members sign up and check them out. When completed, the quilt tops are turned in, and saved for our Community Service Days in October to be completed and ready to go to our volunteer quilters. I must mention one member, Maryellen Swanson, completed 10 quilt tops in the month of August and showed all of them at our September meeting. This is totally worth a special mention!!! Who receives these quilts that are both beautiful and made with love? Anyone that needs one and asks Community Service Chair Kris Lovetro for one. She considers the circumstances, and sends them out, drops them off, fedEx’s them – it goes to very sick people, anyone from our cousins, to aunts, to brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers… and sometimes to entire families. (We had a family in Strawberry lose their house and each member got a comfort quilt). The name alone, COMFORT quilt – describes it perfectly. As a personal recipient of a comfort quilt, I could feel all the hands that touched it to create such a beautiful quilt. Without our June Quilt Show, The AQG Grant, and the focused dedication of all of our members, we would not be able to put so many smiles on so many faces that are in dire need of something to smile about. It keeps us sewing with a purpose all year around. If you would like to join us, The Strawberry Patchers meet on the first Thursday of the month at the Pine Library Annex/activity Center. Social time is 9:00am, and the meeting begins at 9:30am. This month, we welcomed another new member, Toni Miller! All are invited to attend a business meeting! Our members-only time is the 3rd Thursday of the month for our Sew Fun Days. We plan classes and do sewing stuff, and have so much fun. For more information: www.strawberrypatchers.com