Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
STITCHED A community
Quilters guilds patch up Arkansas by donating to local charities and shelters
If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Old Scratch was unwelcome at QuiltMania, three days of nonstop productivity by the Saline County Quilters Guild.
More than 30 quilters showed up in early April at the Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in western Pulaski County with the goal of finishing a quilt. It was the guild’s 28th such gathering. The number of sewing machines matched the number of quilters, along with miles of fabric and a table of snacks.
Valarie Nichols, 39, of Benton did it. She finished her very first quilt.
“I’ve always been a craft-y person,” she said. “I was talking to a friend about a sewing class, and she said I’d learn more by joining the guild. She’s proving to be right.”
Her quilt, up on a wall, was about 20% done when Nichols went to QuiltMania. One day, she worked from 8 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. The quilt, Nichols said, has about 500 squares. It will go on her guest bed. “It took a lot of time, but I’m not deterred.”
And “it’s my first one, so I can’t give it away.” Next up are quilts for a friend who just had twin girls, to be made from vintage fabric.
A more vintage quilter is Marcia Lasiter of Prescott — “I’ve been in this guild a long time” — a retired home economics teacher who taught at Bradley and Prescott. She was working on a Pickle Dish pattern, which required 31 pieces of fabric in each block.
“It’s my sanity when things are crazy,” Lasiter said. “Whenever I’m stressed, quilting puts me in a new frame of mind.”
These quilters aren’t alone. Quilt guilds in Arkansas run, if not from A to Z, then from B to Y — Bella Vista to Yellville, from the Calico Cutups to the Crooked Creek Quilt Guild.
A website, quiltguilds.com, lists 30 quilt guilds in the state.
At Mountain Home, for instance, the Hill ’N Hollow Quilters Guild has about 90 members, Peggy Moody, the communications chair for the group, said. Members come from Jonesboro, Moun
tain View, Marshall and even Harrison, she said. And she lives south of Yellville. The guild’s mission, according to its website, is to preserve, promote, share and teach the art of quilting.
Two quilt guilds are in Pulaski County.
The Arkansas Quilters Guild meets at the North Little Rock Community Center, 2700 Willow St. Monthly meetings are 6:30 p.m. on the second Monday. Quest Quilters meets the second Monday of each month from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Shepherd of Peace Lutheran Church in Maumelle.
Nor is the Saline County QuiltMania a singular event. The Arkansas Quilters Guild will have a three-day quilt gathering at Ferncliff in October. It’s the AWOL Quilt Retreat.
That is: Arkansas Women on Leave.
CHARITY EXTENDS TO MANY
Tracey Childress is director of the Cooper-Anthony Mercy Child Advocacy Center in Hot Springs and Benton. The center serves children in six counties — Garland, Montgomery, Polk, Hot Spring, Saline and Grant — who have suffered from abuse. Children, from 750 to 800 a year, are referred to the center from agencies such as the Arkansas State Police and the Department of Human Services.
The center provides a comprehensive response to child abuse, Childress said.
The Saline County Quilters Guild provides the quilts.
“For years now they’ve been a benefactor to our organization,” Childress said. “Our children love the quilts.”
“These quilts speak to any and all ages,” she said. “The quilts are one of the things that later on the children will tell about how much it meant to them. We often talk about what these children have been through.”
“A quilt is a protective covering or a shield,” she said.
“When we have conversations about strategic planning, we say a quilt is one of the most important things to have on hand for our children.”
The Arkansas Quilters Guild has a goal this year of supplying 20 or more twinbed size quilts for Open Arms in Lonoke, which provides temporary or long-team housing for children who are survivors of abuse or neglect.
Lois Hall, who with Nola Ballinger coordinates the making of the quilts, said three have been finished thus far. The quilts, she said, stay with the children when they leave. She showed off one quilt, brightly colored with a patriotic motif.
Sometimes the charity begins at home. Quilters in
both groups said they make quilts for family, friends and neighbors.
Sherry Williams of North Little Rock, a member of the Arkansas Quilters Guild, stitched a wedding quilt for her son who married in 2019.
“All the guests signed it,” she said. “Now they have a record of everyone who was there. Part of it is a creative process, and part of it is a giving process.”
About 90 people signed the quilt with a fabric pen.
Williams said, as did others in both guilds, that most quilts aren’t made to be put
away.
“Quilts are made to be used. Throw it in the washing machine, take it out, and use it.”
She also makes quilts for her friends who become grandmothers, “for when they keep the baby.”
At Ferncliff, Kris Boulton of Benton described the healing quilt she and a friend made. Boulton, a county agent in Saline County for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, said the quilt incorporated sayings from Scripture.
She used it when undergoing
successful treatment for ovarian cancer. Others may use it, too.
“I lend it to family members when it’s needed,” she said.
LUNCH WITH THE QUILT LADIES
Gumbo, red beans and rice, chocolate chess pie and conversation with Saline County quilters.
What if there’s an old quilt in a closet, maybe in a plastic bag, just waiting to be thrown away because, seriously people, everyone’s closet is cluttered?
Thrown away!
Gasps. Looks of shock and dismay.
No, no, no. At the least put it in a pillow case, or a 100% cotton bag. If it must be stored, refold it from time to time.
Better yet, put that quilt on a spare bed or quilt rack. Keep it out of direct sunlight.
Do quilters have more than one sewing machine? Oh, for sure. Ola Bramlett of Benton said she has 18. Cheri Johnson of Benton has 13.
The word “stash” is tossed around. What’s a stash? Fabric with which to make quilts. Stashes get to be pretty darned big. Almost like hoarding. (Arkansas Quilters Guild meetings feature a giveaway table of material and books. Please, president Angie Heifner said to the group, take it all.)
Let’s learn some acronyms and some wisdom.
WIP — work in progress. UFO — unfinished object.
And … done is better than perfect.
Buttons. Did someone mention buttons? Brenda Wall of Hensley has thousands. Sondra Curtis of Benton has so many buttons, she said, “I could look until Doomsday before I found the right button.”
How can something so un-modern as quilting be so alive and well?
The pandemic gets some credit. People stuck at home fed a trend. Credit is also given to the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Ky., a town also known as Quilt City.
The museum opened in 1991 and now has more than 650 quilts from 47 states and 12 countries. Fifty to 60 quilts are on display at any given time. The rest are stored in a temperature- and humidity-controlled vault. A great place to visit, the quilters said.
There’s an Arkansas connection, naturally — Irma Gail Hatcher of Conway, who died in 2021 at 82. A headline obituary in this newspaper said three of her quilts are in the museum. Her quilt, “Conway Album ( I’m not from Baltimore),” was named one of the 100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century at the 1999 International Quilt Festival in Houston. She was also the founder of the Conway Quilters.
After lunch, it’s back to work.
Cheryl Morrison of Prescott has her quilt on the floor. It’s a big one. The squares are set “on point,” meaning they’re placed diagonally rather than horizontally. She planned to finish the top on this, the last day of QuiltMania. After which she’ll send it out for the batting and the back.
“I like the creative process rather than the quilting process,” Morrison said. So much that she belongs to three guilds: Saline County, Hope Quilters Guild, and another in Summerdale, Ala.
Fast forward a few days to the Arkansas Quilters Guild in North Little Rock and to Angie Heifner, the president.
She, too, has many, many sewing machines.
“I don’t even know exactly how many, from a treadle machine to a computerized machine.”
A treadle machine is the one our grandmothers had. Treadle sewing machines have no need for electricity. They operate on foot power.
“So if the power goes out,” Heifner said, “you can still sew.”