Empire Quilters Guild

It's been three months since I've been to an Empire Guild meeting. I was reminded of the things I like about the group. It's a VERY large guild -- I don't know if there are any larger ones in the US. There are over 350 members so it's not intimate, but the tone is always warm. And it's SO New York -- the members are so varied, just like the city and area, becaue many are not from the immediate MYC area. Show and tell can be lengthy, but it's wonderful because one sees the variety: white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Russian, European and the quilts range from beginning to very accomplished; it's not all quilts, there were tote bags and vests and jackets and an embroidery piece. Two members, as well as the guest speaker were touting their very attractive books on quilting.

The quilt pictured here, the Big Apple Quilt of course, [photo by HamlinRose who do all our photography and the very excellent newsletter was a fund raiser. Many hundreds of tickets were sold to people all over the area. I think to everyone's surprise, one of the very active members of the group, Debra Levin, won the quilt.

Every month there are 15 to 20 assortments of quilty items raffled and I always buy tickets -- but so does everyone else. I really had hoped this would be the time this year my name was called, but it wasn't. Alas. This illustrates why I don't buy lottery tickets -- I always think of an ad Citibank ran years ago on billboards, they said, "Somebody will win the lottery. But it won't be you." The tag line of course, advised playing it safe and sane with a Citibank account. Well, I consider it my $2 contribution each meeting to the guild. Plus I am still getting rid of years of magazine I've saved so I donated 40 or 50 which they sell for 25 cents, so maybe another $10 donation and happy to have they out of the house -- there aer still many, many to haul off to future meetings.