Scott Swanson
Some people quilt for comfort and beauty.
To others, like Peggy Schroeder and her colleagues in the Log Cabin Quilters, it’s more about art.
“We’re dedicated to the art of quilting,” Schroeder said of the guild, which started last April and has 14 members. They meet on the morning of the first Tuesday of each month at St. Helen’s Catholic Church Parish Hall.
“Art quilting is a new direction that quilting has been taking for a half dozen years or more. It’s not your grandmother’s quilt any more. It’s more art for the walls.”
Schroeder said she helped form the guild after Susan Thompson ran a newspaper ad calling for quilters to form the group.
“There were a handful of us who knew each other, but most of us were strangers brought together by the ad,” she said.
The guild’s stated purpose is “to preserve, promote, share and teach the art of quilting; to promote fellowship and enjoyment of the members; and to participate in the community.”
She said that though the guild is dedicated to promoting art quilting, traditional quilters are welcome.
Schroeder, an award-winning art quilter whose work is included in at least one book on the topic, serves as de facto leader and teacher.
Members work on a “block of the month,” of which they make two copies. One they keep and the other goes to a charity quilt the group is making. Art quilts are usually the size of an 8-1/2 by 11-inch piece of paper and usually are pictorial, landscapes or feature threadwork.
“When you’re working on a small piece instead of a huge quilt, you can test out ideas,” Schroeder said. “It’s something from every day of (the quilter’s) life – the weather, anything. It’s pretty much a pictorial, small quilt. Sometimes it tells a story. Sometimes it’s just pretty.”
She said an example of the work she does is a thread-painted bird that she’s planning to sell on E-Bay in November.
“I did a group quilt of the Queen Mary, looking through a porthole,” she said, citing another example. “It got a blue ribbon at the International Quilt Festival a couple of years ago.”
“It’s more of a masculine quilt,” she said. “It’s hanging on my wall. That’s what I mean by an art quilt. It’s not to cover you up.”
Member Sharon Toth, a retired advertising saleswoman said she got involved in the guild “to meet people who have similar interests to me.”
She said the quilting group at the Senior Center focuses more on hand-quilting, whereas the Log Cabin guild is “more into the new things they’re doing with quilting – new products, new ways to quilt things.”
“I’ve been involved in quilting for about 10 years but I’ve never had anyone show me,” said Toth, who described her role in the guild as “hospitality chair – that’s what I do best.
“I’m a beginner- to intermediate-level quilter. There’s always someone in that group who will show you. They’re patient.
“Everybody has their own area of expertise,” she said. “You can be a brand new quilter and come and someone will help you.”
For more information on the Log Cabin Quilters contact Toth at (541) 367-8694.