Busy day at the Muster yesterday, after our bike ride. Several seminars, and then at noon I went over to the dining room to lay out the blocks for my third striped quilt. I finished sewing them a couple of weeks ago, but until now I haven’t had a large enough floor space to lay them out.

Within SMART is a group of quilters who get together at each muster to plan the following year’s raffle quilt, which raises funds for donation to two veterans’ charities. As I was laying out my blocks, and moving them around again and again, the quilters drifted in for the meeting and were oohing and ahhing about the stripes.

Then the meeting started, with some discussion about this year’s quilt, which was a simple house pattern:

I had sent in four or five of the house blocks, which were necessarily simple since there is a wide range of skills within the group. One of the quilters who tends to be pretty blunt said that she didn’t make any because she didn’t like the block. I liked the block okay, but I was disappointed in the way they were set: plain muslin strips, with not even any corner blocks to liven them up. Boring. I hoped we could come up with a more interesting quilt for next year. Good quilts raise more raffle money, it’s as simple as that.

So last night I came up with a design that requires two different blocks that together create a single Irish chain and star pattern, complex in appearance but fairly easy to piece. I wrote out directions for both blocks, with some help from Patrick on the graphics, and printed out copies. After the person who had been in charge of this year’s raffle quilt presented two ideas for blocks (a Hole in the Barn Door and another one I can’t even remember – snore), I said I also had an idea and passed out my patterns. Everyone liked mine better, so that’s what we’re going to make. Later I was taken to task by one of the older members of the group who told me I had hurt the other person’s feelings by barging in and taking over. Oh, well.

For dinner tonight we had a potluck with our Washington State chapter, nice people we have gotten to know over the past year at local musters, followed by a chapter meeting. One of our chapter members has also been the Director for the Northwest Region of SMART, one of the nine geographical divisions that includes WA, OR, ID, and MT, and he announced at the meeting that he and his wife have decided to sell their RV and stop traveling. Consequently he is stepping down as Regional Director, which is kind of a big problem because the NW Region until last week had only two chapters, WA and OR, and last week the OR chapter folded. So ours is now the only chapter in the region, and we don’t have that many members either. The chapter president is willing to continue in that role but not to step up to Regional Director. After some moments of surprise and befuddlement by the group, Patrick said that he was willing to take on the job. Everyone was thrilled! He oozes energy and competence of course, and was immediately nominated by the chapter.

Things moved fast from there. By breakfast today everyone on the Board had been informed, and Patrick attended the Board meeting and provided a letter of interest and a resume. At the installation of officers this afternoon, he was sworn in as Northwest Regional Director and given a notebook, a banner to hang from the motorhome, a “swinger” with his title that goes on his name tag, and a lot of responsibility.

Then we had dinner followed by entertainment – a fun musical/comedy act that included pulling our newly installed president, past president, and 1st vice president up on the stage to perform as three Elvises!

And then the Muster was over for this year. Most people leave tomorrow morning, but we’re staying another day so that we can do laundry and some cleaning, rest a bit, and catch our breath before we head east on Saturday.