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Although we could not attend the West Coast Relief Sale last April, we slipped a trip in between the Washington and Oregon sales to visit several quilting groups in Reedley, Fresno, and Oakland, California.  We found we actually had more access to quilters when a sale is not going on.  Groups are quilting and the atmosphere seems to be more relaxed.  We came home with many photos of relief sale quilts, pages of notes, and hours of taped interviews.

Kathleen Heinrichs provided us the West Coast Mennonite Auction's April 2004 sale list of the 200-plus items in the quilt auction:  61 comforters ($12,030), 49 quilts ($43,365), 30 afghans ($2,760), 27 baby quilts ($3,505), 25 wall-hangings ($5,365), 4 baby comforters ($500), 7 other textile items ($1500), and a hibiscus-print surfboard ($900).  The quilt auction brought in nearly $70,000 of the $244,000 of the sale total for 29%.  Mary June Goossen pieced and the MCC Quilters (Fresno) quilted the Baltimore Album (left) that sold for the highest price of $5500.  Mary June and husband Ray stand in front of her latest Baltimore Album which was on display on the second floor of. the Mennonite Quilt Center in Reedley.  She made her first Baltimore Album in 1993 and it sold for $9,500. at the sale.  A total of $43,650 has been raised by the eight Baltimore Albums she shared with us from her personal album.  One of these quilts takes Mary June from three to eight months to appliqué.  All were quilted by the MCC Quilters. 

In Reedley, we visited with these prolific MCC Quilters at the Quilt Center--15 to 25 women who quilt every Monday from 8am to 3pm.  They quilt around at at least three frames set up amidst a quilt shop in a large area at the World Handcrafts and Mennonite Quilt Center.  The second photo on the left shows part of this Monday group working on a blue Log Cabin. Starting in the lower-left corner going clockwise are Erma Toevs, Lou Klassen, Vi Fast, Nikky Yarber, Marguerite Wiebe, and Elvera Jost.

It is always interesting to visit with quilters in their homes, as we did with 95-year old Anna Flaming who lives at Palm Village in Reedley.  Anna is shown at the left holding several Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks that had appropriately been pieced by her grandmother.  She plans to finish a top from them.  "I'm a 'scrap women.'" says Anna.  She began to quilt with MCC quilters while living in Fresno in the 80s.  She says of her experience, "I felt like it was something I could do, do myself, and MCC was doing a good work.  I just enjoyed the fellowship and I loved to quilt--it was fun and I met people like Lea."  Lea Lam Knight, former graphic designer, began quilting at the Center six years ago.  She read about MCC Quilters in a tour book and now drives in the fifteen miles from Kingsbury every Monday.  "To me it's part of doing something I like,.  It has a bigger meaning and a steady circle of friends--not gossiping friends.  They're older and I learn a lot of life experience through their eyes."  Lea had learned to knit from her sister in China, but never saw patchwork there.  She added that Chinese do appliqué, however.

It is not uncommon to see Relief Sale quilts made from donated fabrics or orphans blocks.  In the first of the three photos below, Doris Reimer is holding a crazy quilt sewn with fabric salvage from Hong Kong showgirl dresses that were to small to see a the thrift shop.  To make it sale-ready, Doris is using a herringbone stitch down each of the many seams. The antique quilt top in the middle photo was found in a garage.  It was quilted by First Mennonite, and sold at the 1995 sale.  The third quilt is a sixty-year old antique top put in its final form by Dotty Warkentine, quilted by the Fresno MB group and sold at the 1994 sale for $550.  Quilts such as these are found at nearly every sale.  Contemporary quilters, like their mothers and grandmothers before them, make quilts from scraps -- using fabric from unexpected places at times.  But, when blocks and partially completed tops are discovered in attics, basements, and garages, it is as if the scrap work of women from a generation or longer ago, continue to contribute to the peace and relief work efforts of MCC.

During our stay on the West Coast, it was exciting to be able to sit down with FOUR church quilting groups:  Pictured to left from top to bottom are:  1) First Mennonite, Reedley, quilters Katharine Detweiler, Ellen Ewy, Florence Fast, and Doris Reimer of First Mennonite, stitching on an Ozark Cobblestone;  2) Kathleen Martens and Leola Loewen, part of a large Fresno MB group;  3) Mennonite Community, Fresno, meeting over tea and desert at Carol Penner's home;  on Sharon's right is Sylvie Riesen, Carol, Lynette Ratzlaff, and Mary Koop; and 4) San Francisco, Mennonite quilters, Karen Kreider Yoder, John Flickinger, Sheri Hostetler, Kenda Autumn,  Jennette Claassen and Kevin Claassen, working on an Amish Nine-Patch around the frame set up in Karen's living room.  The top they are stitching was pieced in Pennsylvania by John's sister, Lois Flickinger. 

Ongoing research questions for consideration:

1) One of the questions we ask during an interview is "Who taught you to quilt?"  Since on the West Coast we encountered not only a number of younger quilters but also several male quilters, we wondered whether the responses to this question would follow a trend that can be seen in our research.  From a very hasty perusal of the responses to this question from the surveys we have received to date (this does not include personal interviews we have done), the most common response is "Mother."  The next largest response is "Church Women's Group."   Within the Relief Sale quilting population, who IS teaching younger women to quilt?  How many men have shown interest in learning?  Are women willing to let men quilt with them?  Are younger quilters getting their quilting know-how more and more outside the family and church groups?

2) Karen Kreider Yoder was a good quilter by the end of high school.  At Freeman Junior College she made a quilt and invited community women into quilt on it.  She did an independent study on the history of quilters in the Freeman area.  After marriage, Karen and her husband moved to Japan where she experienced a huge cultural change.  Although she liked Japan, she missed home, too.  To bring back a little of "home," Karen began quilting--making dozens of quilts, even teaching Japanese friends to quilt.  Amish quilts in particular became important to Karen.  Is equating quilting with "home," with one's culture, common among Amish and Mennonites?  How many of us have had an experience with quilts similar to Karen's?

To discuss these questions, join the discussion.