Spring Chick Tea was Blooming!!!!

Saturday, April 2nd was the 7th Annual Tea held by our guild.

To let you in on what goes on before TEA DAY.......I'm going to start out with a few pictures showing the process.

Before you give a big tea, you need to have a little one to see how it will play out.

Committee members met at Vevia's house to try out the "Spring Chick" idea.

Then they got together for a work day to make all of the center pieces and baby chicks.  Course when you do that, you have to have another mini tea as compensation for all the really hard work. (ha ha)

The bottom left picture is "Free Ranging" for your tea - think it worked out grand at the two meetings before and on Tea Day.

And work hard, they did.  They had  11+ chicken feeder/pin cushion center pieces to do.  Tags for the food...........

and 70 baby chicks to stuff and sew together.

And was it worth it!

Come the day of the tea, the committee recruited anyone and everyone that stopped by to see how things were going.  Spring and Chickens sprouted out all over the hall.

Thanks to committee member Sara, the decorations she put out sang out the theme for this year.  She had help - wow did the chickens come in.  Thank you Dixie for bringing in some of your aunts chickens and thank you to all that brought in your chicken items for the tea.

Then the FOOD!  Egads, wow, zing bang - quilters are fabulous cooks.

This is what was on the menu:

Cucumber Sandwiches

Fruit - grapes, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries

Three different kinds of cheeses, along with crackers

Hershey Fudge

Chicken Salad in a bread cup

Hawaiian Cheese Cake Bars

Veggies - cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, broccolie, cauliflower, cherry tomatos - and dip

Orange Springerle cookies

Choco dipped potato chips

German Choc Cake Balls

Coconut Walnut Bread

Simple Fudge

Candied Orange Rinds

Cookie Dough Truffles

Pistachio Balls

Cranberry Orange Shortbread

Lemon Mandelines

Scones

Carrot Cupcakes

Bologna Salad

Ginger Coconut Shrimp on Garlic Bread

Brownie Bites

Cherry Choc Chip Amaretto Cupcakes

Orange Galliano Cupcakes

Whoa!  Did I forget anything?  Applause, applause to the committee members for a wonder spread with over 23 items to choose from.

Thank you to the 42 guests that were able to make it to the tea.

Love, love, love all the hats that were worn.

Don't know about the rest of you, but they made me smile.

Jane, Erlene and Lorraine were decked out gorgeously.

Jeanette D's sister and niece were able to join them and Deb B. even wore her invite as a name tag.

Jeanette D. AND her sister, each has a chick in their hats. (click on pictures to see them enlarged)

Say hello to Judy, Jeanette K. and Deb O. and guest.

Verna Lee invited guests to share in the day.  The young lady on the far left is an exchange student from Japan.  Loved her Kimono (there is a picture farther along that shows it in full)

Carol S and Janet H and their guests

This table got a little roudy as you can tell by the smiles

Dixie, her youngest, Vicki and Emilee, Martha and granddaughter and Dixie's Aunt.

This is the aunt that has oodles of chickens.

We should have had name tags.

Hayley, Sara and guest

Granddaughter Reece and Virginia and Ruth J.

Susie, Juanita, sister-in-law B and Carol B

Thank you Susie and Juanita for the showing me the proper etiquette to drinking with a tea cup.

See those pinkies up and out - great job.

Donnis, guest Deb T, Vevia in back

Leila, mom Bess and Teresa E.

Okay who can guess mom Bess' age?  No way - but yep, she is 93.

Teresa started out the Show 'n Tell with the new door hanger that she made for mom - perfect, has a chicken and declares "Spring".  She also brought in the cutest baby chicks in slippers and pattens - kind of hard to see them with all their "hair".  Was great that they matched the "mama" chick bucket decorating the table.

Deb brought in this gorgeous wooden wall hanging (Vevia thought it would make a good paddle, but at last, we are not allowed to use them anymore), love the plate also.

The things you get to know when you attend our meetings.

Did any one know that Erlene grew up on a chicken farm?  Or that over 3,000 (or was it 5,000) of the buggers is a little too much.  hahaahah

She is holding a grading scale in her hands.  You sit the egg on it and the little arms come up and tell you what grade.  Loved her story about the egg inspector coming now and then and breaking the eggs to pinch the yoke to see if the chickens were eating right.  (Course Erelene can explain that a little better than I did here)  Thank you Erlene for the wonderful tool of yesteryear.

Jeanette D. has an adorable antique chicken pinchusion in her hand and her sister is holding the very proper and respectable rooster of the family.  Wished I could remember what they call him.

Look at the girls hats - they are just perfect and the pearls also.

Judy brought in her mothers chicken.  Don't you just love the chicken's plump stately appearance.

Deb brought in these adorable children doing their chicken chores.  They are so cute.

And then she blows our mind with her Eleanor Burn's pattern of American Barns.  In the middle you can see the chickens in front of the barn.  Gorgeous quilt Deb.

Here is the kimono in full.  Quite a story about this young lady, ask Verna Lee to tell you about it.

Carol brought in this apron with "chicken scratch" embroidery on it.  Remember those days and those aprons?

Okay, here's Dixie's Aunt and a few of her chicken items.  The glass dish is perfect.

Think Dixie said this is also her Aunts.

Do any of you remember last year when Susie brought in to the embroidery group "Chicks of the Month" - well here is Virginia's rendition.  Virginia even had some chicken wire fabric that she had gotten from Iowana, and used it in the border.  Lots of buttons displayed around it also.

The chickens encompassed with old barn wood and chicken wire on front was also Virginia's.  She had looked at it and looked at it, but walked away.  What a great surprise it was to find it under the Christmas Tree months later.  Get another shot of Erlene's egg scale, and Deb's statues also.

Sara has finished her "Chicks of the Month" and had done a wall hanging from a panel.  That inner border really picks up the colors in Sara's chickens.

Sure hope Sara and Virginia bring their Chick quilts into this months meeting so we can get another look.

Jane C. had shown her quilt at the March meeting and was kind enough to loan us her "Chicks of the Month" for display at our tea.  Thank you ever so much Jane.

Carol B doesn't collect chickens; however, she had to get this wooden one (think Hobby Lobby) as it just spoke to her.  We can see why.

Vevia finished her "Chicks of the Month" and added a few more of her own.  With Jeanette K's suggestion of adding prairie points - it made Vevia's version complete to her.

Thank you everyone for sharing your Show 'n Tells!

Had to get another picture of Erlene's gloves.  These belonged to her grandmother and were hand stitched.  Yes, Erlene knows the etiquette and took them off before she ate.  haha  See the little chick on Erlene's flower?  We had chicks everywhere.

Had to get another shot of these two and their "twin" looks.

Loved the "Spring Chick" door hanging.

      Do pray that everyone had a great time.  We are on the look out for next years committee and are thinking about having two parts to it - one for food and one for decorating.  So if you think you can do one, but maybe not the other - give Carol S. a call and let her know that you are interested in helping.  More hands increases the fun.

     And remember -  Feed back is always welcome.

Thank you everyone that pitched in and helped with the clean up.  Thank you all committee members for the wonderful job you did.

See you Monday, April 18th for our regular guild meeting.