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Mouse TalesVol 6 - Issue 4 October 2007Contents
President's MessageThis message was difficult to begin. I have decided not to seek re-election, so after our annual meeting in November, I will no longer be the president of CyberStitchers. For something that has been a daily part of my life for so long, it will feel strange not dealing with the day-to-day business of the chapter. But rest assured this chapter will be in very capable hands; the slate of officers to be presented at our November meeting is a wonderful group of people who will continue to help CyberStitchers grow and flourish. I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'thank you' to every one of you. You have made my tenure a wonderful time, full of terrific memories. This chapter has come a long way in just 7 years! We have almost 275 members now, we're growing daily, and we have so many opportunities to learn. The number of courses CyberStitchers is able to offer is almost unheard-of in other chapters; we are so fortunate! Please take advantage of any opportunity you can. I know that, while I won't be in a leadership position anymore, I plan on continuing my participation in as many activities and offerings through CyberStitchers as possible; I'm having way too much fun to stop now! : ) I have enjoyed serving as your president, and want to thank you all again for your support, encouragement, and participation in the running of this chapter. It is truly a group effort, and it takes every member to make CyberStitchers the best chapter in EGA. I have been honored to be your leader the past three years, and look forward to many more years of friendship and stitching with you all. Respectfully submitted, Kelly Jackson
Chapter NewsA reminder, we have a new mailing address for CyberStitchers. It is actually
simpler. National announced a dues increase of $3.00 starting January 1, 2008. Happily, the chapter has a little money that members have donated "for the good of the chapter". The Board has decided to these fund to benefit everyone, and will absorb the increase for the first year and not raise dues until 2009. A Thank you from the Seminar 2008 Committee: EGA Members, The EGA Seminar 2008 Committee would like to say thank
you to everyone who participated in Early Registration by visiting us
in Chicago, going on-line, or mailing their registration form in. It was
a treat to meet some of you at the Exhibit. You kept us busy right up
to the very end and we loved it. See you there, Share-a-Stitch basket: The Region's Share-a-Stitch regional seminar is in June 2008. CyberStitchers will join other chapter in having a 'basket' to donate to the Tea Cup Auction fundraiser. As previously explained, it is called a 'tea cup' auction because in the past teacups were used to put tickets in for the baskets you wanted to bid on. Each chapter donates a basket of goodies: threads, patterns, fabric - you name it - dontated by chapter members to be auctioned off. The CyberStitchers' basket is going to have the theme, 'The Blues' and we plan, instead of an actual basket, to put things into a small suitcase or duffel bag for easy transportation home by its winner. Start thinking of things that are 'blue' - blue fibers, blue fabric, a blue teacup, a blue box of chocolate, a blues music CD, etc. Sometimes we aren't as visable in EGA as we could be - this is a good opportunity to participate in OUR regional event. Rissa will be collecting the items and transporting the 'basket' - we'll announce where and when to start sending items to her as the time of the seminar approaches. Special Interest Groups: Check out our SIGs - Special Interest Groups. Different stitchers have gotten together for specific interests: Beading, stitching a Christmas ornament each month, Victoria Sampler/Lavendar & Lace designs, Brag Book, "Heart of My Heart" pattern stitch-a-long, Inspirations Magazine projects, the Dragonboat class, and of course, a UFO (Unfinished Fiber Object) group for members to encourage each other to finish GCC and EGA class pieces. Go to SIGs on our website to see what is going on. ATC/President's Challenge: It has been decided to extend the Artist's Trading Card challenge for another year. You can read about the President's Challenge for more info. Rissa is going to be running the exchange of cards for those who wish to participate. You should have your's sent to her by January 1, 2008 in order for her to get them out to everyone for Valentine's Day. Rissa will be posting her post office box for mailing to the chapter.
Education ReportThe education committee is composed of Anne Long, Irene Staker, and Rissa Peace Root. This year's BEE classes have been selected. For our new members, BEE means Big Education Event. For the past 4 years, CyberStitchers has been allowing its members to take 1 class for just the cost of the book; the chapter picks up the course fee and postage. Which classes are available is determined by vote. This year we are offering 13 sections of BEE classes - 10 different courses. Our BEE4 classes are: Beaded Nutcrackers - closed since it's already in progress In a nutshell, there were openings in Beaded Nutcrackers, Color Play, Crewel Choices, Meadowsweet, More Options in Hardanger, and Winterspring. :-) Anne was also going to register a section of Tiramisu this quarter. It is NOT eligible for your BEE class so you would responsible for your share of the course fee and postage. Please email Anne offlist to check for availibility of the various GCCs. The openings posted for BEE are old and most likely some classes are now full. Don't forget to check and see which classes are being offered online by EGA National. There are 2 classes offered every 2 months, and this is another option for taking GCCs. November-December will be "Oksana's Sampler" and "Florentine Christmas Ornaments". If you look in Needlearts, you will see quarterly offerings with a 2 month registration period. The December offering is "Casalguidi and Lavendar" A Lavendar-Scented Pillow" with registration due by the end of January. Most Successful Programs: Instead of a Petite Project, Anne Long told me I could present some of the Tennessee Valley Region's Most Successful Programs as our group stitching events. These are very similar to Petite Projects, except that they were developed by chapters on a local level, then donated to the region in order to be presented to other TVR chapters as educational events. First up, is one that I did for my local chapter, Mississippi NeedleArts, which recently became part of the TVR. It consists of several files: the redwork primer, stitch diagrams, a pattern, and some other extraneous material. The project materials are located on this list, under files --> TVR Most Successful Program. It is several separate files, instead of one large one, but they are all in PDF or JPG format: http://tinyurl.com/yvopk9 I hope that you will enjoy this project and the others that will be presented as chapter events over the next year or more. Rissa Peace Root BAM: BAM is Bead-a-Month and grew out of a SAM, Stitch-a-Month, program we purchased for several years. Our own Rissa picked up with BAM when SAM ran out of new files. The current SAM/BAM stitch is the Lazy Stitch. All diagrams are maintained in the CS-Stitch-A-Month yahoogroup. Look in the Files section in the Folder labeled "Files for BAM". If you are not a member of the CS-Stitch-A-Month group but would like to be, send an email to: CS-Stitch-a-Month-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Stitch-a-long: We have a few stitch-a-long groups going now such as the ornament group and a bead group. Please let me know if there is an interest in a group stitchalong, a small meeting stitchalong, or any other similar ideas you might have. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me. Please address Education Committee questions to:
Outreach ProjectsStar Pillows This project is still in full swing. Using the cross stitch pattern provided by the chapter, you stitch a small design on a 6x6 inch square of 14ct. white Aida and then mail it to our Chapter Project Coordinator. The stitched squares will then be assembled into small pillows with similarly-themed backing fabrics. The completed mini-pillows will be donated to Bergstrom Air Force Base Youth Development Center in Shreveport, La., and Lehigh Valley Blue Star Mothers of Allentown, Pa., who will give the pillows to their military personnel who are about to deploy to various locations overseas. The soldier will kiss the pillow and give it to his or her child, as a keepsake that will hopefully comfort the child during the separation from their parent. The pattern may be found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cyberstitchers_ega/files/KISSING%20PILLOWS%20pattern/ as a PDF document (or, go into the Files section in this group, and click on the folder Kissing Pillows Pattern); if you need technical assistance, please contact Lynn via e-mail. As you can see, the stitchery is very simple and uses only three colors of floss. It stitches up very, very quickly; I was able to stitch one in spare moments during one day! Meg has volunteered to serve as Project Coordinator for the Kissing Pillows Chapter Project. She is the chapter member you will mail your stitched design to, and she will be sure that the squares are assembled into mini-pillows and sent on to the final distribution point. Contact Meg via email for her mailing address. We hope that many chapter members will find this project to their liking and that Meg will receive many stitched squares! Just a few items to bring to your attention: Yes there is a Canadian version of this project for Canadian service folks. Lynne D., one of our Canadian members is coordinating this in her f2f chapter in Ontario. Contact Lynne D. by email to get the pattern and information for the Canadian version of this project. Ornaments for Breast Cancer For those of you who stitched a Christmas/Holiday/Winter ornament and donated it - THANK YOU!. Karen will deliver your and others' ornaments to The Attic needlework shop. The shop will be conducting their annual auction of customers' ornaments, and the money they raise is donated to a nationally-known breast cancer research charity. Karen plans to photograph the ornaments before sending them along and post them so that we can "ohhh" and "ahhhh" over everyone's beautiful work! Now it is time to start thinking of next year! Bookmarks For Literacy Judi continues to accept handmade bookmarks for the chapter's Bookmarks
for Literacy project. The requirements are as follows: Outreach for One Our "Outreach for One" folder is still there to provide members with other ideas for outreach. Go to our cyberstitchers_ega Yahoo! group. Click on "Links", then on "Outreach for One" folder. Maintenance of this list now rests with the chapter members. We encourage members to post other links to charities you know of that need assistance, or you can send the information to our Outreach Chair, Lynn, and the committee will see that it gets posted. The committee always welcomes any ideas for chapter projects (either from the membership or the committee). As usual, it's a bit difficult to find something a chapter like ours can do. Any ideas will be gratefully accepted, and will be fully investigated by the committee. Please share your ideas with our Outreach Chair, Lynn.
Of InterestEGA National has a website, www.egausa.org. It shows all the education opportunites, has a calendar of events, and has some interesting articles on the subpage for Needlearts magazine. Our region, Tennessee Valley, also has a website: www.egatvr.com. Info for region seminar doesn't reflect Seminar 2008 in Memphis just yet, but will shortly. Check it out. From the region newsletter: As an EGA fundraiser, the EGA finance committee is offering the opportunity to win an all expense paid trip to Seminar 2008 in Louisville, KY August 31 - September 5, 2008. Tickets are $10 and are available from our region director or an EGA officer. The prize includes a 4 day registration fee, a maximum of two kit fees, 1/2 room for a maximum of 6 nights, $25 per diem for a maximum of 6 days, and travel expenses up to $500 (the maximum value of this prize is $1805). The drawing will be held at the closing banquet and Seminar 2007 in Chicago; the winner does not have to be present to win. The winner must be an EGA member in good standing. The prize it not transferrable to another person; a runner-up will be chosen in case the winner cannot attend. For questions, contact Barbara Harrison, National Fundraising Chairman. Ornament Exchange: With a winding up of this year's ornaments for outreach, is anyone interested in having an ornament exchange amongst ourselves as we did last year? We need one person to volunteer to act as coordinator to collect everyone's ornaments, and mail them back out. The way we ran this last year, each person mailed their ornament to the coordinator along with money for postage, or a padded addressed envelope with postage, to mail an ornament back to them. Karen did a great job of this last year. She assigned a number to each ornament, and randomly assigned ornaments to everyone. Let Sue know if you are interested in being the coordinator this year. Dragonboats Class: The Dragonboats class is still up and running on yahoogroups. People still continue to join - especially some of our new members. If you are interested in making one of these cute little ornaments, the class is free for all members. Go to yahoogroups.com and sign up for CSDragonboats, or email Sue for an invitation.
Calendar:CyberStitchers Meetings:November 8-13, 2007:General meeting of CyberStitchers from 9PM (ET) Thursday, November 8 through 9PM (ET) Tuesday, November 13. December 11-16, 2007:Board meeting of CyberStitchers from 9PM (ET) Thursday, December 13 through 9PM (ET) Tuesday, December 18. January 8-13, 2008:General meeting of CyberStitchers from 9PM (ET) Thursday, January 10 through 9PM (ET) Tuesday, January 15. Regional and National:Now - November 30, 2007 Louisville Artisans Guild ExhibitAt the Margaret Parshall Gallery, Louisville, KY. October 22 - November 30 Dowry: Marriage Ties, Gender Divisions and the Making of a Nomad Family Embroidery Museum and Resource Center, Louisville, KY. Contact Laura Olah November 8 - 11, 2007 Globe Sampler Extended Study Program With Nancy Nehring and Judith Tyner at EGA HQ in Louisville, KY. December 3, 2007 - February 29, 2008 Legacy of a Lifetime: The Croatian Cutwork of Manda Ilic Margaret Parshall Gallery, EGA HQ, Louisville, KY June 20 - June 22, 2008 SAS XXVII Stitchin' in Memphis Regional Seminar, Memphis, TN Other Events of Interest: Check the EGA website for other interesting event listings If anyone knows of other events that should be included here. Please let me know. We cover a wide-spread geographic area, and with summer vacation, people will also be traveling, and may want to check out other things that I have missed. Sue - your friendly cyber neighborhood newsletter editor. Please put CS in the subject line.
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