A major renovation at the Mt. Toby meetinghouse created a wonderful big blank wall inside our Fellowship Room. Rather than use the wall for a mishmash of random announcements, posters, etc., we decided we wanted a piece of art there. Because several of us were known to quilt, especially Becky Reed (a member of Across the Valley Quilt Guild with extensive experience of creating quilts communally), we settled on making a quilt. We sent out a call and found 12 interested people, who gathered over lunch at Becky’s house to start the creative process. The group turned out to include weavers, painters, photographers, and yes, quilters!
The miracle was that we came up with a concept we were all happy with. The idea was to create a fabric picture of the building and its surroundings – Mt. Toby itself and its hills, tall pine trees, open sky, and meadow grazed happily by sheep from the farm next door, and beyond, a winding stream, the old stone wall. At that point, a team of 4 continued the work, led by Becky. A slightly larger group, when the picture was done, came together to complete the border. Becky brought panels of fabric for the back of the quilt to Sunday meeting, where people generally were invited to sign on, providing a snapshot of the attenders at Mt. Toby at this moment in time. As we write, this is where the quilt has progressed. The picture included shows the front of the quilt with the picture and the border.
Becky’s husband, Joe, recently fell and injured his neck. During his weeks of recuperation, someone from Mt. Toby brought one of the quilts that hang in our Champney Room, to him as a comfort quilt. Becky then began to think about comfort quilts as the next project for Mt. Toby. Anyone want to join us?