Asheville Quilt Guild Sends Out Comfort into the Community
By Meg Hale Brunton
Since 1987, the Asheville Quilt Guild has been creating handmade quilts to give out to people in need throughout Western North Carolina. Members pick up quilt kits at the meetings and return them when they are completed, never knowing whose hands they will end up in. “It doesn’t matter,” Community Quilts Co-chair Nancy Dazell says of not knowing where their quilts will be sent. “I know I’m sending out comfort. I don’t have to know the recipient; I don’t have to know the problem.”
The Asheville Quilt Guild gives out quilts to various groups, including Project LINUS of WNC, which distributes quilts any place a child might be in distress, such as the hospital, foster care centers, or scenes of car accidents. The Guild also donates quilts to the Asheville Veterans Hospital, Transformation Village, Habitat for Humanity, Copestone Mental Health Facility, and the Mission for Life-Share organ donor program. They also bring crib quilts and baby blankets into Mission Hospital’s NICU and maternity wing. Last year alone, the guild distributed 668 quilts into the community. “It’s actually great,” Guild Projects Chair Sian Brunton says of making quilts for others. “Because there’s only so many quilts you can make and give to your family members.”
Guild Projects Chair Jeannine Davies says Camp Bluebird is the project that is closest to her heart. It is a retreat for adult cancer survivors, put on by the Pisgah Health Foundation every fall. The camp offers various classes and activities for the attendees, including sewing. “It touches on those peoples’ lives specifically,” Jeannine says of the class, adding that the ‘campers’ learn to make various crafts, including sewn baskets, fabric-decorated greeting cards, and folded fabric stars. “Every year we come up with something different.”
Jeannine is also one of the teachers of the Youth Quilting Program sewing class that the Guild puts on for third graders at local schools, including Ira B. Jones Elementary School. The Guild volunteers start by teaching kids to sew a straight line on paper, then the kids sew four squares on their own to make a pillow. In the end, they all make and sign a nine-patch block that is sewn together as a quilt and presented as a gift to the school.
Local schools aren’t the only places the Guild teaches sewing. For the past eight years, Marcia Salansky has been a volunteer teacher at the Western Correctional Center for Women, a minimum-medium security women’s prison in Swannanoa. During the class, the inmates have 8-10 weeks to make a complete quilt. They each pick their patterns and the teachers give them directions on sewing them together. After the first few weeks, Marcia finds there are very seldom any questions because the women learn so quickly. “They are a pleasure to work with. They are happy. They look forward to coming every week. The women have the opportunity to learn a pastime, something they can enjoy,” says Marcia. She says the women, aged late-teens to 70s, are selected for the class by the prison staff, and there is usually a waitlist. “The end product is really valuable for the self. It gives them such a sense of accomplishment.” After the class has completed their quilt, they give their quilt to the Guild to be donated.
One of the Guild’s newest members, Susan Sweeney, has always been interested in quilting, sewing, and handiwork. She joined immediately after moving to Asheville last September. “Just the satisfaction of creating something, especially if it’s my own idea, when I can take that thing and then use it to benefit somebody,” she explains.
The Asheville Quilt Guild currently includes 298 members and is open to all ages and experience levels. They hold regular meetings and workshops with guest presenters, as well as more informal quilting bees in locations all over the WNC area. The last weekend of September, they will be hosting the 38th annual Asheville Quilt Show at the WNC Agricultural Center in Fletcher, NC. At the event, over 300 quilts from across the country will be on display and judged in various categories. The event will also feature vendors, workshops, raffles, kids sewing, a silent auction, and gift shop. For ticket information, visit the Asheville Quilt Guild’s website.
For more information on the Asheville Quilt Guild, visit their website: www.ashevillequiltguild.org
For info on the Asheville Quilt Show, go to: www.facebook.com/AshevilleQuiltShow/
