Quilting is an ancient craft that used up scraps of fabric,
built artistic and pleasingly warm bed covers and brought women
together to enjoy each others
’ company and to work for a common goal. It still does.
Quilting is an ancient craft that used up scraps of fabric, built artistic and pleasingly warm bed covers and brought women together to enjoy each others’ company and to work for a common goal. It still does.
One South Valley quilting group, for the past five years, has put its quilts to work for breast cancer research. Piece By Piece Quilters makes a quilt together, raffles it off during the Taste of Morgan Hill and donates the proceeds to research.
This year the proceeds will go to the Saint Louise Breast Cancer Center. The quilt can be admired at BookSmart during the Taste; the store, at the corner of West Second Street and Monterey Road, also will sell the raffle tickets during this weekend’s Taste in the downtown.
Quilter Connie Stratton said the group chose a design called “The Basket of Hope” published in June in McCall’s Magazine.
“We hope to raise $5,000 this year for the Saint Louise center,” Stratton said. In 2002 the raffled quilt earned $3,500. The basket block design quilt is large enough for almost any bed and designed in blues, greens and reds.
“The actual fabric design came from Bonnie Ben Stratton,” Stratton said. She pointed out that the designer is no relation despite the similar names.
Piece by Piece Quilters have been together for 11 years and now number 120 members. The group stitched more than 80 quilts in 2002 alone and many, many more over the years. Most quilts were donated to a variety of places including, just recently, 27 twin-sized quilts to the Rebekah Children’s Home in Gilroy. Rebekah Children’s Services provides a home for children who are wards of the court.
“We also made a Linus quilt project to take up to the Stanford Hospital for critically ill children and we took some to Community Solutions here in town,” Stratton said. Community Solutions provides a wide range of crisis intervention, counseling and support services for children, families and individuals in the community.
Stratton said one of the joys of the group’s quilting sessions is women of all ages sharing their personal quilts.
“Recently a woman who was about 80 years old shared her first quilt; at the same session 9-year-old Marcy Rubio shared one she had made too,” Stratton said.
At least one quilter is recovering from breastcancer herself.
Piece By Piece quilters hang out behind Madonna Stitchery on Vineyard Boulevard at Concord Circle, in the space vacated by Gavilan College when it moved into the community center earlier this year.
For information on Piece By Piece Quilters or on the raffle, call Diane LeGore, 779-5013. BookSmart, 17415 Monterey Road at West Second Street, 778-6467.
