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The Grateful Threads sewing group meets from 1-3 pm on Tuesday and 6-8 pm on Thursday at the manse of the Lee Street Methodist Church, and would be glad for you to join.

Current president of the Grateful Threads Nancy Gerlech gave a tour of their operation, revealing brightly colored rooms with even more brightly colored fabric and thread. Their current project consists of making matching quilts to give away with children’s books, to be donated around the time of Dr. Suess’s birthday.

Gerleck went through the quilt making process. “The bottom is called the backing. And then you have the top layer. The top layer is the one that you design.” The central layer, called the batting, acts as a light stuffing for the quilt.

Gerleck’s first forays into quilting were pragmatic. “I’ve always sewn for a long time and made clothes for the kids when they were little.” She expanded her efforts, joining the guild while they were still meeting at Furlow Charter School.

Valerie Duff is the original leader of the group. In addition to quilting quilts, Duff has been making quilted coats, matching Dolly Parton’s book, Coat of Many Colors. She is also making quilts that match a ghost story, titled The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt.

She traced the journey of the group, starting with her own journey into quilting. “I didn’t start quilting until I retired. I was an educator, and I retired in 2011, and I’ve always sewn, but I didn’t start quilting till after that, and once I got started, it was like an addiction.”

Duff prizes originality in her addiction. “I don’t follow patterns a whole lot. I don’t like to make something somebody else has made.”

Her enthusiasm was contagious. “Other people said; ‘well, I want to learn.’ And so I had a little class.” From there, the class became the guild.

The guild has a history of taking on projects in service of the community. Duff recalls their first. “We did quilts for cancer patients. One of our members actually works in that clinic. And so the first year, I think, we made 30 something quilts for them.”

They sight their sights even higher. “The next year, we got ambitious, and we decided to make quilts for foster kids, and we made almost 100 we made 90 something quilts for foster kids in a year, which was pretty amazing. And then after that, we did a couple of years with quilts for veterans.”

Creating quilts for cancer patients was especially meaningful for the group. “Miss Whaley, she passed away, and had a lot of unfinished quilts, and so we finished those, most of them.” Duff has used blocks made by Cordelia Whaley for the coats of many colors. “So we finished coats from those, and we gave those to the cancer clinic last year.”

The group discovered Whaley had a connection with the clinic. “We didn’t know it at the time, but Miss Whaley had been a patient in the cancer clinic, and so we invited her family to come when we presented them to the cancer clinic.”

 

Correction: The Grateful Threads meet at the Lee Street Methodist Church manse. The original article stated they met at the First United Methodist Church manse.