Here in Louisville, KY I've been very fortunate to find lots of folks who love machine quilting as much as me. For the last several years, we've gathered together once a month to share that love of machine quilting. When we first started our longarm guild there were maybe 5-8 people coming every month. Now that group has grown to more than 20 people regularly joining us (and I'm running out of chairs for the crowd!). I know that there are many machine quilters who are not this lucky. While they can usually find a quilting guild nearby, they struggle to find other quilters who want to talk more about quilting their quilts than piecing their quilts. I wanted to create a place for machine quilters all over the world to come together. I get lots of messages from quilters who would love to join us for the longarm guild, but because of work or distance it's just not an option for them.

Introducing the Quilted Joy Clubhouse!

Today, I'd like to introduce you to the Quilted Joy Clubhouse! This is a Facebook group for quilters to share their love of machine quilting. We are a creative community of friends from around the world, learning, sharing, and supporting each other in machine quilting both sit down and stand up. The Clubhouse is a "closed group" on Facebook, meaning you have to have a Facebook account and request permission to join. Before joining you'll have to answer a few easy questions about yourself. I want to make sure the group is full of human quilters and not robots! Members of the group can write posts and share pictures just like you normally do on Facebook. But what you share will only be seen by fellow Clubhouse members.

Live Monthly Meetings

On the first Wednesday of the month at 1pm EST I'll be hosting a live meeting for the Clubhouse. These meetings will be broadcast simultaneously in the QJ Clubhouse Facebook group and on YouTube. I plan to model them similarly to our monthly guild that meets in my shop. We'll have a different program that will cover a range of topics. These topics could include different ways to quilt common blocks, how to audition quilting designs, tips and tricks for ruler work, and more. We'll also have a design round table and show and tell. Throughout the month I'll be looking for pictures of unquilted tops in the QJ Clubhouse. During the design round table I'll share ideas for how I would quilt the quilts. I'd also love it if you'd comment on the video with your ideas of how to quilt it too. And we'll ohh and ahh over recently finished quilts that were shared in the group too! Our first live meeting will be on Wednesday March 6 at 1:00pm EST. If you can't tune in for the live meeting, don't worry. We'll save the videos in the Clubhouse and on YouTube so you can watch them whenever you want.

Share Your Love of Quilting!

My goal is for the Quilted Joy Clubhouse to be a community for machine quilting friends to come together every day. Show off your latest quilts. Ask questions when you're feeling stumped. Share your tips and tricks that you just can't believe you didn't think of before. I hope you can join me over in the Quilted Joy Clubhouse! Click here to find us on Facebook. Click that blue join group button to answer a few easy questions about yourself (I promise you can't fail our test!). Once you're added to the group, introduce yourself to the members of the Clubhouse. Share pictures of your quilts and let us know what you're working on. You can also click here to subscribe to the Quilted Joy YouTube channel. You'll be notified whenever a new video is posted!