The Charleston regional quilt group is The Cobblestone Quilters, and yesterday morning I went to meet them–having joined online a few days before Saturday. The doors open at 9 am, and the meeting is from 9:30 to late morning and is followed by a lunch a member can purchase–or just attend with one’s own lunch. Classes can and do happen in the afternoons.
The CQ quilters meet in a church in Hananan, which is west of Mt. Pleasant and about a 25 minute drive. The WAZE app took me there without incident–though just as I got on the 526 interstate highway, the heavens unleashed a gully-washer downpour of sheets of much-needed rain.
I had made contact with the CQ membership chairperson online, and I met her immediately as I came through the door. And she introduced me to nearby gracious lovely women who, in turn, introduced me to other gracious lovely women. To say I was welcomed is an understatement.
This group of about 75 members is super well organized. The large room was lined with all sorts of tables filled with events and activities for members to participate in or just enjoy–each manned by member volunteers. This group does a lot of community out-reach, from making donation quilts for various charities to supporting another group’s filling and packing Christmas boxes for lonely sailors who arrive in the Charleston harbor over the holidays. Next time I will do a better job of taking illustrative pictures. I was kind of in shell-shock at the amount of goodness I saw displayed I think.
The large room was filled by the time the meeting started. And I started feeling a bit woozy with all the chemical smells that a packed room with lots of people causes me to have. But I made it through to the break before knowing I had to take Benadryl or I had to get some fresh air. The worry here is whether I can drive safely if I don’t make a change. So I made my apologies and, regretfully, left.
Why didn’t I take pictures of the part of Show and Tell I did see? There were amazing and gorgeous quilts of all kinds displayed by these excellent quilters. I have definitely found a great quilt group. For sure.
There are two Cobblestone “splinter groups” that meet here in Mt. Pleasant later in the month: the Patchwork Gals meet monthly in the morning at the Wando Library, about which I recently blogged; and the Indigo Quilters meet in the early evening not far from me. I met women who go to the Patchwork Gals at the CQ meeting. I will attend both of those meetings later this month.
Note: In my Northern Virginia regional quilt group of 20+ years ago, now called Quilters Unlimited, the small groups that met outside of the regional guild meeting were called “bees.” And in Maine, actual local groups formed that were group members of the Pine Tree State guild–like The Coastal Quilters that met in Camden, Maine. Our other group in Camden, Maine, The Mt. Battle Modern Quilt Guild, which I helped start , belonged to the Modern Quilt Guild, which is a different “parent” organization than the Pine Tree Quilters Guild.
So, I came home energized, but sad I had to leave early, and hungry–and to find that my neighborhood did not get more than one drop of rain. So, today I will need to water outside.
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