Stitching Community: Fiber Arts and Service

The Quilters

By Laura Marcus Green

 

 

The Quilters: Individual Quilters and Their Stories

Connie Ewbank, Quilter, Quilt Designer, Instructor and Historian, Former Community Service Chair for River City Quilt Guild

Connie Ewbank is a lifelong handworker who became serious about quilting when her children were grown. In her former home, St. Louis, Missouri, she owned a quilt and cross-stitch store for twelve years, before moving to Baton Rouge in 2004. Since arriving in Louisiana, she has established her own quilt design business, Butterfly Stitches. Through Butterfly Stitches, Connie creates and distributes her own patterns, which draw upon her innate eye for color and design. She is also a quilt historian who gives presentations on various aspects of the art form. At the time of this research, Connie was the Community Service Chair for the River City Quilt Guild. She has also launched a quilting group at her church in Denham Springs, which was initially a class but has continued on as a community service project.

Bonnie Moates, Quilter, Remember Me Quilt Guild Treasurer and Webmaster, Machine Embroiderer

Bonnie is a new-generation quilter who joined the Remember Me Quilt Guild when she was in her twenties—by far, the baby of the group! A chemical engineer by training, she brings her mathematical mind and scientific approach to quilting. She has conducted a controlled study of the impact of washing on different types of batting, the soft layer that is stitched between quilt tops and their backing. For this experiment, Bonnie made up several quilt blocks using the same pattern and fabric, but stitched the blocks with batting of different fiber contents (cotton, bamboo, corn, wool, and silk). She then washed these blocks and measured the difference in shrinkage among these different materials.

Bonnie is a prolific and generous quilter, who donates somewhere between a third and half of the quilts she makes to various causes, predominantly through Remember Me and The Giving Quilt. Bonnie also makes quilts for friends who are in need of a quilt—those who have babies, get married, or lose a loved one. Her machine embroidery skills come in handy for making quilt labels and specialty items. Bonnie recently purchased a house in her neighborhood, which she rents out as a quilting retreat for those who need a getaway close to home. At the time of her interview in 2014, her retreat house was booked through mid 2015.

Renée Hoeprich, Quilter, Quilt Designer, Former River City Quilt Guild President, Wasted Women/The Giving Quilt, Remember Me Quilt Guild, Sassi Strippers Quilt Guild

Renée Hoeprich is a fairly recent transplant from San Diego to Baton Rouge. She has brought with her a wealth of quilting experience and knowledge, and seemingly boundless energy to work on quilt projects. She does hand and machine quilting, contemporary quilting, and quilt design, finding multiple outlets for her creativity and sense of design and color. She participates in all three of the guilds documented for the project, among other fiber arts circles. At the time of this research she was president of the River City Quilt Guild. Renée works closely with Wasted Women to help sort and distribute fabric and kits, and is the activity chair for The Giving Quilt. Renée has brought with her to Baton Rouge a program that she developed in San Diego, Kids Draw for Kids (KD4K), in which children draw on quilt blocks that are then assembled into quilts and donated to children in need.

Candy Bergeron, Quilter, Co-Founder of The Giving Quilt, Remember Me and Stash Builders Quilt Guilds member

Candy learned hand quilting as a girl from her grandmother and great aunts, who gathered for a week each summer to quilt, with the assistance of Candy and members of her generation. Candy has fond memories of these times with the quilters in her family, and feels a similar sense of kinship with the members of the two quilt guilds to which she belongs—Remember Me and Stashbuilders of Gonzales. Candy pieced her own first quilt as an adult. She is an active participant in the Baton Rouge quilting landscape, embracing the technology that has made the work faster and easier for today's quilters. She relates the history of The Giving Quilt, which began in 2008 with a show featuring 35 quilts made for Quilts of Valor, a national organization providing quilts for wounded veterans. Since then, The Giving Quilt show has grown to a biennial event with over 600 quilts, all of which are made for donation to over 40 causes and organizations. Candy's accounts of the ways the quilts are used and their impact on recipients are very moving. At the time of the interview, Candy showed a "burrito" or roll of quilts that had been donated to The Giving Quilt, some of which she made. The burrito is a handy way to store donated quilts in anticipation of The Giving Quilt's show, as well as various needs that might arise between shows.

Judy Holley, Quilter, Quilt Designer and Instructor, Wasted Women Co-Founder

Judy first encountered hand quilting as a young girl, when family members pieced quilts from recycled clothing. In addition to being a prolific and talented quilter, she has taught quilting locally and regionally over the years and was instrumental in establishing The Wasted Women's Bee, which recycles fabric into community service quilts. Judy has also been involved in various civic quilt projects in Baton Rouge, helping to design and coordinate quilts that commemorate local history or advocate for change. These quilts are on display in public locations in Baton Rouge, including the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. Judy has also become known for designing and piecing quilts for those who have lost family members or friends. These memory quilts are made from the deceased loved one's clothing and provide solace at a time of loss.

Mary Woltman, Quilter, Gulf States Quilt Association, Remember Me and River City Quilt Guild member

At the time of this research, Mary was president of the Gulf States Quilt Association, which encompasses Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida panhandle. In this role and in her former capacity as the River City Quilt Guild president, she has made community service projects a priority. As she put it in her interview, "You can't change what has happened, but this is something you can do." Mary shares the story of her first awareness of the impact of community service quilts, when a friend in her quilting guild was diagnosed with cancer. Mary and others in the guild made her a quilt, which she took with her to Houston for treatments. Mary's friend reported feeling wrapped in the love of her friends when wearing her quilt. This lit the spark for Mary, and community service quilts have been an important aspect of quilting for her ever since. Mary began learning handwork as a little girl from her mother. Quilting and the camaraderie of fellow quilters have been a thread of continuity in Mary's life in several places she has lived in the U.S. She has brought some of the ideas and traditions of her former quilt guilds to the Baton Rouge quilting landscape.

Notes

Sources

Laura Marcus Green, Ph.D. is Folklife and Traditional Arts Program Director at the University of South Carolina's McKissick Museum and the South Carolina Arts Commission in Columbia, South Carolina. The research for this article was completed in 2014 and published in 2016 as part of the Baton Rouge Folklife Survey. Green gratefully acknowledges Maida Owens and the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program for the opportunity to pursue this research. She extends heartfelt appreciation to the fiber artists and fiber arts organizations whose generosity in time and knowledge made this project possible. Green dedicates this essay to the memory of her grandmother, Helene Laura Tarr, who taught her to crochet and introduced her to the idea of fiber arts and community service, as she crocheted lap robes for wheelchair-bound patients in a Veterans Administration hospital and nursing home.

© 1999-2019

Louisiana Division of the Arts | Office of Cultural Development | Dept. of Culture, Recreation & Tourism

Louisiana Folklife Program, PO Box 44247, Baton Rouge, LA 70804, tel 225-342-8180

CREDITS • CONTACT US/LINK TO US