Quilting hope
Babies staying in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Vincent’s East will, once again, stay a little warmer this winter swaddled in handmade blankets from the Heart of Dixie Quilters Guild.
As their main community service project of the year, its 25 members already have made 40 quilts to donate, said Linda Layfield, second vice president. The goal each year is 80 quilts. The parents of any child in the NICU get to pick out a quilt the guild has made, and for foster children, the guild chooses a children’s book and designs the quilt based on the chosen book.
It’s been a community service project for so long that Layfield said she can’t remember when it began.
“The nurses always reinforce the fact that what we do is such a needed mission,” Layfield said. “They rave about how wonderful the quilts are and how much the parents love them.”
Guild members visit the nurses throughout the year and deliver the quilts, and they have a couple of other groups that also contribute to the collection.
The guild, which formed in 1988, is open to any skill level and holds meetings at Cahaba Springs Presbyterian Church in Trussville.
President Mary Ann Raley had a great-grandmother who quilted, but she knew nothing about it when she started the hobby in 2005.
“I am the first in a while in my family to quilt,” she said. “I enjoy the making-it process — figuring out what blocks and colors go together and how it’s an accuracy-intense project. I also enjoy the connection to my ancestry. I think about the quilts my great-grandmother had when I was growing up and wonder if my descendants will one day have my quilts.”
Layfield, a 19-year guild veteran, was 9 when she started to sew and 24 when she learned how to quilt.
“I never dreamed I’d be a quilter,” she said. “But I do come from a long line of quilters. I made everything I wore until I got overweight. I made my wedding gown and other dresses in just six weeks.”
Like most things, the veterans of such a craft have a certain way of doing things.
“My mother always insisted that the separate pieces of a quilt had to be hand-stitched together,” Layfield said. “We do it on a sewing machine — not everything is done on it, but a lot is.”
Then there’s also the “A” word: applique.
There’s a certain often-used method that’s frowned upon by quilting and sewing enthusiasts — one that leaves a raw edge on the fabric and a red flag that its maker is cutting corners, so to speak.
Layfield cringes when she sees this and also when she hears the phrase “sewing is a dying art.”
“Sewing and quilting are not dead,” she said.
Like the family members who preceded her, Layfield has passed her passion down the line. Her daughter is also a member of the guild, and her oldest granddaughter made her first quilt when she was 7 years old.
So where do quilters store all their masterpieces?
Many give their quilts away, but guild members also dress their walls and beds with them, Layfield said.
The guild visited Southside in early November for their annual members-only retreat. It’s considered a UFO event, meaning unfinished objects.
“It’s a time for us to get together and get away, and eat, sleep and quilt,” Raley said.
“The retreat is a time for fellowship and learning more skills or to get better at what you know,” Layfield said. “I love spending time with fellow quilters.”
They have one man in the guild now, too, who’s been quilting a couple of years.
“He’s already won a ribbon at a show,” Layfield said. “When men start piecing, it’s amazing what they can do.”
The cost of quilting varies.
“It can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be,” Layfield said. “The sky is the limit, and the basement is there, too.”
The group also makes Quilts of Valor for veterans to recognize them for their service.
The guild is a nonprofit organization with a $20 annual membership fee. They meet on the third Tuesday of each month at Cahaba Springs Presbyterian Church. For more information, go to hodquilt.com or to their Facebook page at Heart of Dixie Quilters’ Guild.