Women shed modesty to put on fundraiser

Diana Ball never imagined she’d be a pinup girl at the age of 61.

The Bonner County grandmother will make her modeling debut this fall in a charity calendar, draped across a dining room table with some artfully arranged mink-like fabric covering her naughty bits.

“I think everybody said yes before we knew what we were doing,” said Ball, who posed atop table runners she quilted herself.

The employee of Ponderay’s Stitchin’ Sisters yarn and fabric shop joined her boss, colleagues and friends posing for the 2008 wall calendar to raise money for three charities: The Community Cancer Center, Panhandle Animal Shelter and Diabetes Education.

“This is not your Grandma’s quilting calendar,” warns shop owner Audra Mearns, who was photographed wearing cowboy boots and wrapped in a quilt.

Calendar model Karen Olson, 64, said she watched the movie “Calendar Girls,” loosely based on the real-life women of Yorkshire, England, who bared all for a charity calendar in 1999, and couldn’t imagine how the women got up the nerve to strip down. But it proved to be a fun experience, she said.

Photographer Caroline Spott took more than 1,000 pictures of the women posing outdoors around Bonner County and during a photo shoot at Stitchin’ Sisters. The models range in age from 28 to 66.

Ball’s daughter, 37-year-old Stephanie Christman, posed with fabric inside the shop – on a day it was closed. Still, Christman said it was strange being photographed semi-nude in plain view of the store’s front windows.

The calendar arose out of discussions the women had about the controversial air-brushing and manipulation of magazine cover photos. They also were inspired by the Dove brand’s Campaign for Real Beauty, which heralds the beauty of all body types.

“We need to do something fun that shows how fun we are,” Mearns recalls saying. “We’re real women.”

Since the store opened two years ago, Mearns said, helping the community has been a major focus. In October, the shop had a “panty raid,” collecting donations for the local women’s shelter.

The calendar illustrates the love the women of Stitchin’ Sisters – a self-described sisterhood – have for themselves, one another and the community, the women say.

“It’s a concern for other people and sharing what we love,” Olson said. Each picture features projects made by the women.

The charities benefiting from the sale of the calendars have special meaning for the women who posed, Mearns said. Two of the women are diabetic and all have experienced or been touched by cancer.

“We all have pound puppies,” Christman added.

With knitting gaining popularity among a younger generation of crafters, Mearns said she hopes the calendar illustrates that crafts like quilting can also be “edgy and cool and fun.”

Just like the women themselves.

If the $15 calendars are a success, Mearns said the women might make another calendar next year. They’re considering choosing women from the community to participate.

“It might be your mom next year,” she said.