Having fun visiting but still sewing!

I had a wonderful day with the Waterloo Quilters' Guild on Wednesday. I wish I had more hours in my days and weeks to visit more quilting groups like this. There were so many wonderful stories told by the quilters as they shared quilts at the Show 'n Tell part of the program...showing us their grandma's quilt made of pieces of dresses and aprons from decades gone by, bedquilts made for loved ones, a memory quilt of photos showing a family's Halloween costumes throughout the years, a treasured quilt gifted many years ago to a recovering cancer survivor by her quilting friends, "touch" quilts made for the Alzheimer's program - all these heartwarming stories shared to inspire and encourage each other. I also got to see some of the award winning quilts from their quilt show in September...wow!
Above is a photo of half of the room at the evening meeting, which had less people than the afternoon meeting - they are such a large group, they meet twice each month.  You can just see the top of my head and some of the quilts I brought along to show folded on the table. Can you believe I even took along my very first quilt (which is STILL a UFO) on this outing!?! You can see it in this blog post from 2007! I'm sure I will finish it this year! LOL!
And here are some of the quilters who took me out for supper between the meetings. Too much fun!

And to prove that I have not been a total slacker, eating out and visiting with fellow quilters, I want to announce that I have finished a table runner that I will be able to use this Christmas!  It is made using Monica Solorio-Snow's pattern called Jingle Jolly Tablerunner. All the fabric, except the white, came from the new Have a Sherry Berry Christmas fabric line from Northcott. I really can't put my finger on why I like this fabric so much...is is the retro softer colours? I don't know. Here is the quilting I did on the the white stars and just stitched in the ditch to finish it off.
Special thanks to Monica for this pattern and for giving me permission to teach it to 4 ladies at my local senior's centre.
And here is the finished tablerunner, which is just big enough to cover my diningroom table.