A group of seven MacGregor-area quilters haven’t let the coronavirus stop them from doing what they love — creating quilts.
It has stopped some of the social aspects of the pastime, but they have managed to adapt, with some unique changes. So far, the group consisting of Heather Stone, Jennifer Wiebe, Heather Martens Rempel, Sharon Lloyd, Judy Burch, Odette Blankvoort, and Antoinette Blankvoort-Wieberdink have created seven quilts, and they haven’t stopped yet.
In the past, the group made up of present and past MacGregorites used to meet regularly on Saturdays at the United Church to quilt together. With COVID restrictions making this difficult, even impossible during lockdown times, they decided on a change. Instead of meeting to quilt, they would pass around boxes of fabric with each member working on their own to contribute one row to each quilt. They decided to call them the ‘Silver Linings Quilts.’
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First, they settled on dimensions, with each row to be 60 inches across by 10 inches tall. Then the participants each decided on a colour scheme for their first row and went through their own stash of fabric to select colours, or bought fabric in those colours. “Often we made do with what we already had, sort of like they might have done in olden times,” said Jennifer Wiebe.
Then each member did a row of ‘their’ quilt before arranging to pass it on to another who would design a second row before giving it to another, and so on. The quilters were given about a month to complete a row before passing it on. Once seven rows were completed, the final quilts were approximately 70×60 inches.
With seven quilters, the project took about seven months to get passed around. It was started in October 2020 and the rows were completed by about April 2021.
“The first month or two were a bit of a guessing game,” said Wiebe, “but as time went on, you could see more and more how the fabric that came with it, or blocks from your own stash, could work into a design or theme.”
Wiebe’s garage became the dropping-off point for members to leave a box and then pick up another in exchange, after allowing a suitable time to ‘quarantine’ the fabric. “It was always exciting to open up the box and see what had already been created,” said Wiebe. “It became the highlight of our month. The last month, when we got back our own box, it was a big surprise to see how others had used what each of us had started. We were like kids at Christmas!”
Once each had all the rows for their own quilt, they could choose in what order they wanted to piece the rows together. For the final step, they were taken to professional long-arm quilters to do the topstitching and finishing touches since most members don’t own the machine with the longer arm that is needed for this step.
By the fall of 2021, the quilts were ready to be displayed and were hung for public viewing in the North Norfolk-MacGregor Library and in Victoria Place Assisted Living. As a final touch, the members created a set of note cards showing the finished quilts, for themselves and for others who were interested.
“We decided to turn it into a fundraiser and those who wished could make a donation to purchase some,” said quilter Heather Stone. Money raised was designated for the MacGregor and District Kinettes Emergency Fund. By mid-January, about $1,600 had been raised.
The quilt project has caught on elsewhere, once others heard about it. “A friend of mine is a quilter in Killarney, and they started up the same thing after I told her about it,” said Stone.
Most of the MacGregor quilters do not plan to sell their finished product. One quilt, which looks like a bookshelf with many books, has been donated to the library where it will periodically be displayed.
Of course, completing the Silver Linings project hasn’t put an end to the members’ quilting. When it is feasible, some of them have sometimes been meeting again while wearing masks and socially distancing to work on their own projects. So far they haven’t started on another group project, but they would like to do so in the future. Who knows what project they might tackle the next time?
