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We will post news about our Mennonite relief sale
project here.
Please come back often and feel free to email us with any
questions you have
We hope you will spend a few moments exploring
the various pages under the top menu. Putting your mouse
over the menu tab will reveal the pages available under that
heading. Click on the pages you would like to view.
In particular we hope you will take the time
to read about the project (Our Project)
and participate in the survey and discussion (Participate)
currently focused on The Mennonite Relief Sale Quilt.
Any one who has attended an MCC quilt auction, made a quilt for
auction at a relief sale, or purchased a quilt there is invited
to fill out the survey.
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Web site is open for your participation |
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December 2005 |
In the middle of November we added the Texas sale
in Houston. It was our last scheduled sale and we took the
opportunity to visit quilters in several places along the way
including Oklahoma, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio.
Since August we added to our list of sales attended the sale in
Arthur, IL and the Virginia sale. While in the East we
made additional contacts with quilters in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario. It has been an amazing
experience to talk to so many women about their experiences.
Now begins the work of analyzing and summarizing all the data we
have collected.
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May 2005 |
We have been invited to attend the Bienniel MCC
Relief Sale Workshop in Waterloo, Ontario at the end of the
month. During that time we will interact with quilt committee
representatives sharing and collecting information, interview
quilters and attend the New Hamburg relief sale.
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April 2005
Accessing the survey for groups of women who have ever quilted
together |
We have posted the "group survey" on the site for
printing. This survey focuses on the group experience of
quilting for MCC relief sales. In talking with individuals
we came to realize that we really needed to have the voices of
groups. It makes sense because women often quilt together. We invite all women's groups - whether they
are congregational women's groups, friendship groups or family
groups who have ever quilted together to fill out this survey.
This survey will not be available for you to
fill on online but you do have access to it here and we
encourage you to print it out, fill it in with your group and
send it to us. Click
here to open the group survey for printing. We also
encourage you to print out a page of
instructions.
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Bill Tammeus, columnist for the Kansas City
Star, published an article about quilters for MCC relief
sales on April 17, 2005. Our research was referenced in
the article and we were consultants for the article. The
article, Quilting for God, was picked up by several
papers around the country. |
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January 2005 |
We were very pleased that Timbrel ran a story
about the ongoing work of our project in November. If you
haven't had a chance to read it, please look it up.
As sales subside for a few months around this
time of the year, we are spending our time on the project trying
to organize and begin the analysis of the information we have
gathered during our months of travel. Thank you all for
the support and interest many of you shared with us as we
attended your sales. To read more about our travels,
Marilyn has written a summary of each sale we attended and it
can be found here under the NEWS menu item.
We want to encourage you all to participate in
the discussion on the blog (this has been hard to get going) as
it contributes important perspectives that may not have been
collected in interviews or surveys.
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Fall 2004 |
We spent a good deal of the summer and
early fall attending MCC relief sales. As a result we have
fallen behind in updating the sale "reports" and other parts of
the site. We apologize but will be making those changes in
the next month or so.
We appreciate your ongoing interest and suggestions and are
still open to having quilters fill out the survey on the MCC
relief sale quilt. Please spread the word to quilters you
know - we would like to have participants from all parts of the
US and Canada.
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Ontario/Iowa trip |
Marilyn and I will be going to Ontario to attend
the New Hamburg relief sale, interview some quilters in these
areas and visit the archives at Conrad Grebel University
College. We will also be making a stop at a museum of
quilts in Lansing, Michigan and taking in the Iowa City Relief
sale on our way back to Kansas. If you
see us at the sale, please introduce yourself. We would
like a chance to meet all of you on our trips.
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Lucy Hilty Research Fund |
We were very please to learn recently that this
project has been selected to receive the Lucy Hilty Research
Fund, a grant offered by the American Quilt Study Group.
As Lucy Hilty was born into a Mennonite family it is
particularly meaningful to us for the project to receive this
award. Lucy Hilty was born in Pandora,
Ohio in 1917. She attended Bowling Green State University
during the Great Depression and completed her Masters degree at
Columbia University after World War II. During the war, Lucy
worked as a volunteer for the International Committee of the Red
Cross. After retiring from her career as a kindergarten teacher,
she became on of the early quilting teachers in the late 1970s.
She developed a reputation for fine hand-quilting and elegant
quilting designs.
Lucy's mother was involved in Church group quilting and the
Mennonite Relief Fund and her father helped by marking the
quilting pattern. Lucy came to see a quilt as a big area
to express an idea.
A founding member of the American Quilt Study
Group, Lucy served on the board of directors during its
formative years. She was part of the Berkeley, California group
of "Crazy Quilters" and spent her final years in Kensington,
California.
http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/ContextPage.php?essay=27
While we are very grateful for the
research grants we have received, the funds received do not
begin to cover the expenses of this project. If you
believe this project warrants doing, we invite you to invest in
it. Please go to the menu item,
INVESTMENT, for more on how to be an investor in this
research.
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Survey available
in printed version |
Some of you may be more comfortable filling in
the survey in pen. Surveys can be accessed in
printed
form. If you are a member of WIM Canada or know someone
who is, surveys can be accessed through the provincial
presidents. If that does not describe
you, the survey can be printed from this site, filled in
with pen and sent to us. Click on:
Printed version of survey
after
reading the next paragraph. Then print the
survey using your own printer. (Feel free to make a copy
for your friend or others in your quilting group.)
The survey is in .pdf format. That means
you must have Adobe Reader to open and print it.
Adobe Reader is a useful piece of software because it preserves
the original formatting and it is free. You can easily get
it from
http://www.adobe.com. Look on the left hand
side of the page, click on Adobe Reader and follow the directions.
Then click on the printed version link above.
Send your completed survey to us - see
Contact Us
for the address. |
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Quilt picture archive |
We are collecting pictures of quilts (one piece
or pieced quilts only, not tied or screen printed comforters).
If you have pictures of quilts from the quilt auctions you have
attended OR have pictures of MCC relief sale quilts you made or
own, we would be happy to include them in the archive.
Pictures can be sent to us at the address
found under the menu tab
Contact Us. They may be in either
digital files (from digital cameras or scanned pictures) or the
actual pictures. If you send us a picture, we will
not return it so please ensure that you also have a
copy.
Please include on the back of the picture
everything you know about the quilt: date sold, quilter(s),
designer, pattern, sale at which it was purchased, current
owner, etc. |
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