relief society quilting bee

During the summer our Relief Society president asked me if I'd teach the sisters in the ward how to sew a quilt. Being an amateur myself, this request was a bit daunting, but I thought that if I kept it simple, I could do it. However, after a few discussions with her, I realized that what she was envisioning was more along the lines of an old-fashioned quilting bee, with ladies sitting in a circle sewing by hand with a pleasant buzz of conversation in the air, rather than the busier buzz from a bunch of sewing machines. So I scaled my already pretty simple ideas on how to go about this down even further.

In the end we decided to do a basic patchwork quilt. While I was in Utah, my quilting sister, Katie, helped me narrow down the color scheme -- blue, with splashes of yellow, green, and white -- and pick out fabric. In addition to what she helped me find, I also added some fabrics from my own stash.

Back in Brooklyn, I cut everything into 5 1/2" squares, and on the designated day, taught the Relief Society how to sew them by hand into strips using the back stitch.

photo credit: Hitomi Yamashita

It took a bit of practice and a fair amount of frustration before everyone got the hang of it. But by the time our time was up, more than one person announced to me that they'd become converted to quilting.

 photo credit: Hitomi Yamashita

There was no way we could finish the entire blanket in one sitting, so a few weeks later, after I'd taken their strips, turned them into a full quilt top (using a sewing machine, thank you very much), and sandwiched it together with the batting and backing, we met once more to tie the quilt and learn how to attach the binding. Fewer people were able to come to this second gathering, in part, no doubt, thanks to the downpour that coincided with our scheduled time to meet. But even with only a few hands we quickly got a lot done, leaving me with only a small part (hand-stitching the back side of the binding -- my favorite part of assembling a quilt) to finish up on my own, which I was able to do on our drive to the apple orchard.

And then it was done. And it turned out beautifully.

The quilt will now be given to a sister in the ward who lost everything last year during Hurricane Sandy, so all of the sisters who helped to put it together not only gained a skill for themselves, they get to share it with someone in need. And isn't sharing a quilt you made with someone else an incredibly fulling part of quilting? I think so.