By: Sheila Crowley
Review Staffwriter
Once upon a time folks constructed quilts for one reason: to keep warm during the long winter months on the Midwestern prairies, where the cold winds howled through the cracks of their frontier abodes.
To keep their families toasty warm, the women used any and every source materials – from feed sacks to recycled clothing to piece together good hardy, warm blankets. It was warm and inviting, snuggling under the weight of the quilts, during a long winter slumber as long as you didn’t get out of bed.
Often times old blankets or mattress pads were reused for the quilt batting, and clothing no longer suitable for wear was put into service for the top and bottom. Making quilts could be pure tedium yet a necessary chore for those women who hand stitched the varied squares into a patterned quilt top.
It was an enjoyable diversion to the routine of daily life, to gather with other ladies for a quilting bee, sandwiching middle fillers between tops and bottoms using precise stitches.
These days in addition to quilts, there are many other quilted projects being made including purses, hot pads, wall hangings and house hold items popular projects among others.
The Piecemaker Quilt Club of Slayton is a group that actually began in Fulda with Grace Meier. They currently have approximately 20 members and meet once a month in the community room at the Slayton Public Library.
Together the members of the club create and donate quilts to various organizations including the local Christmas Project, Veteran’s Services, Hospice, and Shetek Bible Camp for fund raising events. Every year they provide a quilt for the library’s Chocolate Affaire, and they sew dresses and shorts for children in Haiti. When Christmas rolls around, members are busy sewing pillow cases and other items that are donated to charities near and far.
Their programs can be anything from working and talking about projects, to taking a day trip somewhere quilt related. One of their programs was going around the group and asking how each got involved in quilting. “The stories were very interesting,” commented Margaret Kluis, a 20 year member of the club. She spoke of the first time she had attended the quilt club, “They were talking about seam rippers and what brand was the best….I didn’t even own one.” Kluis has sewed garments her whole life, beginning when she was a young girl under her mother’s tutelage. “I now have every brand they talked about.” She claims their motto is: ‘As you sew, so shall you rip.’
This past July, the group gathered and crafted 15-20 flannel receiving blankets which were gifts to the Helping Hands Pregnancy Center in Worthington. This talented group of ladies is always willing to share their abilities and look for ways to give back.
Most recently members sewed 22 pillow cases. According to Kluis, this is the fourth or fifth year the ladies have completed this project. The project was announced prior to their October meeting and members took it upon themselves to make the creations.
Recipients of these special pillow cases were children at the Ronald McDonald House in Sioux Falls. In addition to the pillow case, the group added a stuffed animal and book to coordinate with the pillow case.
Kluis wasn’t sure how this project initially got started but knows the recipients appreciate the gift and the generosity of the group’s members. Once the children are able to leave the Ronald McDonald home, the pillow cases as well as animal and book go with them. “This is something similar to the Linus program where blankets are given to the children of the home of which we had also been a part of at one time,” shared Kluis. “Often times,” she said, “we have a ‘stash’ leftover pieces from various projects so this is a way of being able to re-purpose those pieces.”
The special gifts were delivered to the Ronald McDonald House the first week in November – just in time for the holidays. “We are sharing our gifts with the hope of brightening some child’s life,” commented Kluis.
According to the website the Ronald McDonald House’s mission is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children, with a goal to provide a place where families can be together.
Many families travel far from home to get treatment for their seriously ill or injured child. Often, it can be a long time to be away from home, or to divide a family. And for children facing a serious medical crisis, nothing seems scarier than not having their mom and dad close by.
The Ronald McDonald House provides a home away from home for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost. The Houses are built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on healing their child – not where they can afford to stay, where they will get their next meal or where they will lay their head at night to rest.
Quilting in the United States was popular in the late 18th century and early years of the 19th during colonial times but began to wane in the late 1930s with the emergence of factory made blankets.
Nowadays the task is made simpler with various innovations such as markers that disappear, specialized rulers, cutting machines, and digital sewing machines. You can spend a small fortune on your hobby when you’re a quilter.
Quilt shops carry endless arrays of beautiful fabrics in designs and colors, coordinated strips of fabric called jelly rolls, layer cakes and even cheater printed quilts. It’s fun to go and look for fabrics for projects, the quilters all agree.
Kluis says for anybody wanting to learn quilting, they are welcome to come to their meetings – which traditionally takes place the last Tuesday of the month at 1:30 p.m. She believes that no matter how you can learn on Youtube or from other such sources, they can’t tell you if you’re doing it right or wrong. “We really are a support group,” explained Kluis.
Thank you for all the donated hours that you’ve given back in so many ways!
