Our Visit to the Northwest Arkansas Modern Quilt Guild

Hello and thanks for visiting our blog. You'll be hearing from different members of our team from time to time - and today you're hearing from me, Mary Perisho of Mary Make & Do, the full-time sewing instructor at Owl & Drum!

I'm here to share a few stories about our recent road trip to the Northwest Arkansas Modern Quilt Guild.

Last week, we loaded up the car with lots of pre-cut goodies from the store and headed east over the state line, under a sunny blue sky. It was a nice day for the two-hour drive through Green Country into the Natural State.

And, it just so happened that our friend Sacha had a modeling gig at Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art, so she hitched a ride with us. We dropped her off at the museum in Bentonville on our way to Rogers. 

The NWA MQG meetings take place on the third Tuesday of each month at the Rogers Historical Museum Annex in adorable downtown Rogers. We met up with the Guild President, Elizabeth Ray, and set up our pop-up shop at the annex before walking to the nearby Mexican restaurant where the guild gathers for dinner each month before their meeting.

We ended up with about 16 people around a long table, and it was really nice to have this time to share a meal and chat with some of the guild ladies. 

During the meeting, I gave my talk on Modern Quilting. The guild members were a captive and appreciative audience, with lots of “oohs and aahs” heard as I showed the quilts pictured in the slideshow.

I truly appreciated their excited response to my 45-minute presentation. This was my first time to travel to speak, which is something I have wanted to do for quite some time. How cool to realize that dream! Thank you, ladies, for the invite!   

The guild was very much like our own Tulsa Modern Quilt Guild. Lots of enthusiasm and lots of ideas! They conducted an excellent meeting, and included a great activity where each month a different member shares quilting lessons and advice during "The 10-Minute Tip."

We learned a few very useful things - including how to take great photos of quilts for social media postings. It was a good meeting for us to attend because participating guild members were showing their Greenery Challenge, and we got to see a wonderful array of green-themed mini and throw-sized quilts.

The ladies of the guild were thrilled with Owl & Drum's fabric selection, and they had a lot of fun perusing our wares. They shopped both before the meeting and during the break - and we went home with a much lighter load than we hauled over with us!

Sacha met back up with us at the meeting, so afterwards we looked around downtown Rogers - which is well on its way to being revitalized with new businesses - and we found a spot to have a relaxing beverage.

We stopped in the Brick Street Brewery and the friendly bartender invited us to sample any of the local brews they had on tap. What fun! Our favorites were Love Honey Bock and Black Apple Crossing Cider, both of which were brewed locally. Be sure to give either of these a try if you ever have the opportunity. 

No trip to northwest Arkansas would be complete without visiting the popular Crystal Bridges, so the following morning we headed back over to Bentonville, where Sacha gave us a tour of the stunning Dale Chihuly glass installation she had previewed the day before.

We also took the time to stroll through Frank Lloyd Wright's historic Bachman-Wilson House, which was reconstructed on the grounds of the museum in 2015. It is definitely worth a visit if you are a fan of mid-century modern architecture and design! 

We had a great time on our little jaunt to the Natural State, and we look forward to visiting other nearby guilds in the near future!

If you have a local guild and would like us to do a presentation on modern quilting and provide a modern fabric pop-up shop, please send us an email at owlanddrum@gmail.com.

We would love to share our love of modern quilting with you!

Come visit us soon at Owl & Drum - and we very much hope you enjoy our blog! 

Mary