401 E. Piankishaw, Paola, KS 66071     Phone:  913.294.3476     Fax:  913.294.0074

SonShine Preschool

Making masterpieces one stitch at a time

Quilting brings group together and enables members to reach out to others

By Erin Wisdom, ewisdom@miconews.com

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Their stitches are small. Thousands snake across the square of material spread out in the church basement, testifying to hours upon hours of labor put in by the quilters who meet twice each week at Paola’s First Lutheran Church.

It’s work they do for its own sake, and it’s work that’s been done for a long time. Even before Joan Windler was alive, the church had a quilting group, where women gathered regularly, and today, Windler is among the seven people who continue the tradition. 

“We’re preserving works of art,” she said. “It’s an activity we like to do, and we enjoy the fellowship.”

But the work also is much more than a just-for-fun thing. Hand-quilting has come close to being a lost art, and the First Lutheran quilters have a list so long of quilts they’ve been asked to do that, even meeting for seven hours a day two days a week, they likely won’t complete every one on the list for two years.  Still, they keep plugging away — with pleasure.

The quilt on the table Monday featured a Sunbonnet Sue pattern, and the six quilters circling the table chatted as they made small, careful stitches.

“These two used to babysit me,” Elmer Flake, the only man in the group, said as he pointed to sisters Alma and Mabel Sinclair. “Of course, that was more than 80 years ago.”  “And we still do,” Mabel Sinclair added.  Flake conceded that the women do take care of him to some extent, making sure he — having only one month’s quilting experience — has the “easy places” to do.

With his wife in a nursing home, Flake sought out the group to have something to do on cold winter days. And although most of the others came with more quilting experience than him, they too joined the circle as a way to have companionship.

It also gives them a way to give to others. The group earns 35 cents for each yard of thread that goes into its quilts, and the last quilt completed brought in $175. All the money the quilters earn goes to either First Lutheran Church or other ministries, such as funds for missionaries or disaster relief.  “In other words, we don’t make too much an hour,” Alma Sinclair said with a laugh.

But even though it doesn’t come with a paycheck, the quilters find that their work provides a big payoff.

“We’re all retired, and except Elmer, we’re all widowed,” Pearl Doherty said. “This gives us something to look forward to.”

“We’re preserving works of art,” she said. “It’s an activity we like to do, and we enjoy the fellowship.”