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Arts & Entertainment

Longtime Quilters Celebrate Art, Friendship

Local club has been meeting in Lemont for 15 years, first at the high school and now at the Lemont Public Library.

The colors of the seasons are vivid in pieces of fabric when a modern-day version of an old-time quilting bee assembles every Wednesday at the . 

Instead of working on one quilt, members gather around a table to stitch their own projects, catch up on news and celebrate each other’s achievements.

On a recent steamy-hot Wednesday, 12 women got comfortable in the
air-conditioned Athens Gallery at the library, 50 E. Wend St.

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They were eager to share the good news about quilts made by two of their own—a first-place prize in a competition at the prestigious National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, and the completion after 27 years of another member’s hand-appliqued and machine-stitched beauty.

Monica Troy was thrilled to learn that she came in first in her category in the Kentucky museum’s international contest. A trip to Kentucky in April was cut short, however, when severe weather caused a river to overflow near her hotel on the Illinois border, Troy said.

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“But I did get to see my quilt hanging in the museum,” she said. 

Her wall quilt, “Carnival,” was done on a long-arm machine. “The machine, not the fabric, is moved” along a large table, Troy said.

Denise Wirtz’s quilt was a long time in the making because she does many other projects for people.

“But this one was for me,” she said.

Wirtz hand-appliqued the flowers, baskets, birds and bows, and friend Nancy Mancke machine-quilted on the cream-color background.

Another club member, Vivian Dinolfo, had brought along her completed work—a quilt in fall colors with amazing appliqués of birds, vines and traditional quilt shapes.

Dinolfo’s appliqué work is done with invisible hand-stitching. The edges of a fabric appliqué are turned under for a clean finish. Dinolfo catches bits of the foldover with her needle and thread to make an unseen connection to the background fabric.

Debra Rogers had just finished the front of a small calico quilt in shades of blue. “I love to pick out fabrics. You never know if all the fabrics will work together until they are sewed,” she said.

The Quilters Club began 14 or 15 years ago at , said Wirtz and Regina Fain, the first two members. The club is a social group without officers or rules, as a formal Quilting Guild would have. However, the club does not offer quilting lessons.

Club members have made two quilts for the library. One, which has the theme of a bookshelf, hangs near the checkout desk. Another, in the children’s area, was completed by club members using blocks made by others. The blocks illustrate favorite children’s books.

A peek at the quilters' work showed a surprising variety of techniques.

Sharon Urbanski and Janet Woratschek worked on appliqués made from wool. With wool, the edges are not turned under, and the stitches around them are meant to be seen.

Sherry Wesner uses crayons to color in part of her design and then embroiders the outline.

Karen Facenda embroiders holiday designs and combines them with squares of fabric. 

Mancke was working on a traditional quilt pattern called Dresden plate. She was pleased to say that her great-great grandmother, great-grandmother and mother were expert seamstresses who knew their way around a needle and thread. Mancke’s mother quilted and now her granddaughter has started.

Urbanski leads the club two or three times a year in a “sew-in” to make brightly colored pillowcases for children with cancer.

“Some members wash and iron the cases, others stitch,” Urbanski said of the Conquer Cancer effort. The pillowcases are given to area hospitals and children can take them home, Urbanski said.

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