Women share passion for quilting
Grants quilters:‘We love to quilt and we love to share’

Members of the Mount Taylor Quilt Guild inspect a quilt made by Jane Williams during the show and tell at the group's Christmas celebration in Milan on Saturday. [Photo by Karen Francis/Independent]

By Karen Francis
Staff writer

GRANTS — “The quilters on the bus go yackety yack yackety yack yackety yack.”

So went one of the songs that a member of the Mount Taylor Quilt guild read aloud during its Christmas gathering Saturday in Milan. The tune had the chatty members laughing as it continued with several verses that seemed familiar to them.

About 20 members got together at the home of Dorothy Miles to celebrate the season and reflect on the year’s activities.

For at least nine years, the Quilt Guild has been in existence — bringing together people in the area to share ideas and make friends.

Once a month, the group gets together to talk quilting. About 27 women — young and old — who share a love of quilting make up the Guild.

Seated in a circle, the ladies joked and laughed as they took a quilting quiz and listened to holiday verses read aloud by a fellow guild member.

Show and Tell
During most meetings, the members participate in a show-and-tell and Saturday was no different. Several of the members brought out the quilts and other projects that they have been working on for the holiday season bringing out words of awe and appreciation.

The group is more than just a social club or a learning experience. The ladies also do a lot of volunteer work and make charitable contributions throughout the year.

Janet Carter said that in the last year, the Guild made and donated 16 lap robes to a veterans administration in Texas, 11 to veterans in Grants and 21 for a VA hospital in Albuquerque. The guild also donated 12 quilts to a children’s home in Los Lunas, 12 to a Baptist Christian home in Portales and another six to another Christian home in Portales.

“We always give to the veterans, especially those coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Carter said. “We love to quilt and we love to share.”

Pat Hasty, the Quilt Guild’s president, said, “As a guild, we do a lot of service projects.”

This is the second year that the Guild has been donating quilts and lap robes to local organizations.

“We got a letter from a rear admiral in Washington, D.C., stating that they could use lap robes for veterans,” Miles said. Miles has been a member of the organization for six years and has been quilting all her life.

Children's home
The idea to make quilts for children’s home came about after Miles and her sister were on a tour bus and stopped at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

“We toured their rooms and we could see these raggedly quilts on their beds,” Miles said. “So we asked, ‘Do you need quilts?’ and they said ‘Yes.’”

The first year the Guild donated 33 quilts, which Miles and her sister delivered.

Noting that there are many New Mexicans in need, Miles said, “We decided we would take care of New Mexico.”

To pay for their projects, the Guild charges a membership fee and holds an annual fund raiser where members help to make a quilt for raffle.

In addition to the fund raiser, one of the Guild’s regular events is the quilt show at the 66 Gallery on Santa Fe Avenue in May, Hasty said.

Hasty has been a part of the Guild for two of the three years that she has lived in the area.

“It was a good way to meet people after I moved here,” she said.

That was the reason that Carter got involved in the Guild.

She has been a part of the organization for about four years since she moved from Michigan where she was in the local quilting group there for 15 years.

“Some of us are local people and some of us have just moved into town and we share a love of quilting and a love of helping so that’s what we do,” she said.

Carter said she used to love to hand quilt but she is now trying to learn how to use the Long arm machine.

There are all levels of quilters that are part of the Guild.
“People have increased their talent amazingly,” Carter said.

Carter related the story of how she became a quilter.

“When I was about 25, I saw a handmade quilt and I wanted one so bad but I couldn’t afford one so I learned how to make one,” she said.

She learned later that her grandmother and great grandmother were both quilters.

“So I inherited my love of quilting,” she said.

Winnie Thompson has been in the Guild for about five months now since she moved from Indiana and has been quilting for about a year now. So far, she has made two of the lap robes for the veterans and five for herself. She is currently working on an angel wrap for a baby that had passed away at the hospital.

About the Quilt Guild, Thompson said, “It’s a good way to meet people.”

She added that as a relative newcomer to quilting, she has learned a lot from the other members.

“If you don’t know how to quilt, it’s a good place to get ideas,” she said.

Information: (505) 287-2218/5033.