Quilters combine efforts for charity

Quilting for charity is nothing new. American women have been doing it since the founding of the republic, giving away the artistry of their hands to benefit needy recipients or donating or selling it to benefit some worthy cause.

Since 1990, the Magnificent Quilting Ladies of Priest Lake, or “Coolin Cutups” as they have been dubbed, have made one glorious hand-made quilt or wall hanging per year to help with the upkeep of the Coolin Civic Center. Some years they’ve also made a second quilt to raise funds to benefit other Priest Lake causes.

Originally, all of the quilts were raffled, but in 1997 the women were invited to enter into a partnership with the Priest Lake Chamber of Commerce that has boosted the number of dollars the quilts could realize. The quilters agreed to design and create a one-of-a-kind quilt each year which the Chamber would then promote as a special item in its annual “People Helping People” Charity Auction on Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend, when Priest Lake welcomes the tourist season with “Spring Fling.”

The partnership has worked so well the auctioned quilts have realized a total of $21,230 to this date. Another $500 was realized from a wall hanging the women agreed to machine quilt in 2005 as a souvenir for a Lake resident who was moving to a new home in another state. Otherwise, all but one of the quilts and wall hangings produced have been hand-quilted.

The basic technique utilized for all quilts is always applique, but embroidery and various types of trims are often added to embellish the designs.

Sometimes the motifs have been entirely original, as was a “Coolin Bay” wall hanging designed in 2003 from a photograph by Priest Lake photographer Rick Holman. A type of “art quilt,” each quilter was assigned a vertical strip of fabric measuring 9 inches by 4 feet, and a copy of Holman’s photograph, and told to interpret a section of the photo in her own way. The finished product measured 4 feet by 6 feet and sold for $1,500.

This year’s quilt is what the group’s coordinator, Sonja Maloney, calls a “small queen-size,” and the pattern is known as “Baskets and Flowers.” The quilt has a brown background highlighted with a variety of bright colors used in the design and border.

“It’s a very cozy ‘cabinish’ quilt, I think, not so fancy,” Maloney said.

Besides Maloney, quilters this year included Charlotte Jones, Cheryl Bowers, Corinne Fuzy, Lucy Storro, Diane Munk and Louise Melhlert, all veterans of the group who donate many hours of their time each winter to the cause.