Quilts displayed at the Village at Woods Edge
Published 8:35 am Friday, December 16, 2016
- The Village Quilters pose with their quilts. Pictured in back, left to right: Marion Poole, Crissie Eubanks, Martha Barnes, Louise Hedgepeth, Mary Woltmann, Lane Meredith, front, Stell Pierce. -- Stephen Faleski | Tidewater News
FRANKLIN
The Village Quilters, a quilting group comprised of residents of the Village at Woods Edge and other residents of Franklin, have placed their handiwork on display at the assisted living facility. Nearly 50 quilts of varying sizes, styles and complexity were exhibited last month.
Quilts of varying sizes and styles are displayed at the Village at Woods Edge. The Village Quilters created a total of 46 quilts for the exhibit.
According to Mary Woltmann, one of the non-resident members of the group, the Village Quilters include 10 women with over 400 years combined experience in quilting and sewing. The group was formed earlier this year and the women completed their quilts in only a few months.
“I don’t think any quilter can tell you the number of hours she has put into a quilt,” Woltmann said.
Quilts on display at the Village included an applique quilt, in which a quilter takes a design and hand-stitches it to a background; several yoyo quilts, which Woltmann describes as an old style of quilting that produces a fragile, circular pattern; a bargello quilt, which creates diagonal patters using squares and rectangles; a Hawaiian quilt, which uses a design cut from a single piece of fabric sewn overtop of a background; and a crazy quilt, a design that uses irregular shapes, embroidery and lace. According to Woltmann, crazy quilts were popular during Victorian times as a way for a woman to show off her quilting skills, and were typically draped over a chair or piano.
“It’s like if you’re an artist, fabric is your medium,” Woltmann said. Some of the quilts were machine-made and others were handmade.
The group, which meets every other Wednesday at the Village, hopes their exhibit will become an annual event.
“Quilting has always been a social thing for women,” said Crissie Eubanks, one of the other members of the group, who mentioned that there is a second quilters group in Franklin that has met every Thursday at each other’s houses for over 30 years.
One or two people have inquired about purchasing one or more of the group’s quilts, but the group has decided they are not for sale.
“Too many hours go into them,” Woltmann said. “They are labors of love. We make them for gifts but not to sell.”
