Helping hands

It’s a little like walking into a time capsule someone put away in the late ’60s.

In two basement rooms at the Catholic Chancery in downtown Spokane, a group of women have met every week for decades. Surrounded by piles of donated fabric, the Chancery Sewing Ladies produce quilt after quilt, some big, some small, some in bold and modern colors, some with flowers and some in traditional baby hues – and they do it all to raise money for Catholic Charities.

“Everything you see here is donated. We buy nothing,” said Marge Ivanis, who’s been with the group for more than 40 years. “We pay to have the sewing machines serviced, but that’s it.”

The Sewing Ladies used to send their quilts by the garbage-can-full to the St. Vincent de Paul store, so when the store closed last year, they weren’t sure where to turn.

“It was a shock to us when they closed. Suddenly we had to work at getting the word out about our quilts,” said Ivanis. “We were very concerned about that.”

A selection of ready quilts hangs over a rack in the hallway, every one of them labeled with the selling price.

Ivanis said the group produces between four and five quilts a week.

“And we work every week, for nine months of the year,” Ivanis said. “There is no way of knowing how many quilts we’ve made all together.”

In 2001, Mary Rotondi – who was 96 at the time and has since died – helped compile a two-page history of the Chancery Sewing Ladies:

“Mary Rotondi vividly recalls that she was just 7 years old in 1913 when her mother, Mary Anna Brunk started the sewing group. Mary Anna was a member of the Catholic Social Betterment League in Spokane. She dreamed of and wished for a project that would interest housewives and at the same time help the needy.”

The sewing group Brunk founded met for the first time at the St. Francis Xavier school house. Rotondi, accompanied by her mother, and five or six other women attended.

Back then, aprons sold for between 25 and 35 cents, and that’s how the group raised money. That’s also when the tradition of giving the finished quilts to St. Vincent de Paul began.

Today, about 25 women belong to the Chancery Sewing Ladies, and 15 and 18 of them are usually sewing away every Thursday morning. They bring their own lunches, take turns bringing dessert and chip in a quarter each to cover the purchase of coffee, napkins and pickles for break time.

“When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing,” said Ivanis. “We’ve never even purchased a sewing machine – sometimes people just die and leave them to us, or the family just gives them to us.”

Stacks and stacks of fabric fill every square inch of storage space.

Quilt blocks are organized in plastic grocery bags and clearly marked once there are enough for a quilt. The fabric is plentiful. Right now, what the Chancery Sewing Ladies need the most is extra hands.

“We’d really like for some more ladies to come and help out,” Ivanis said. “You don’t have to be able to sew. Some cut the blocks. Some tie the quilts. There’s something to do for everyone.”

The Sewing Ladies use the filling from donated, broken electric blankets as filler in their quilts.

“We always need someone to help us take those electrical blankets apart,” said Ivanis.

This year, Ivanis said, the group has donated $500 to Catholic Charities and is undertaking a smaller project collecting food and household goods for a woman and her children who are getting ready to move out of St. Margaret’s Shelter.

“They have nothing,” said Ivanis, gesturing at the collection basket which holds a few toys, but mostly canned food items. “When you have nothing, every little bit helps.”