While many people are up and about today (Saturday) enjoying the Family Day weekend, a group of women will be hard at work on a community project: the Elmira Needle Sisters Quilt Guild are sewing items for the New Hamburg Mennonite Relief Sale taking place during the last week of May.
But as the ladies come together to make an assortment of items – table runners, jewelry bags, casserole holders, pillowcases and even iPod covers, and by hand, no less – all work and no play is not exactly their policy.
“We also have a lot of fun,” said organizer Norah Crone. “You’ve got a group of about 25 women get together … there’s a lot of laughing that goes on, so it’s quite enjoyable.”
Crone, Deb Beirnes and Dorothy Sittler decided to take on the community project that has put on many charitable faces over the years. Last year the guild donated about 150 handmade pillowcases to various charities.
“Whoever volunteers for the project tries to come up with something that can be done and then donated to the community.”
This year they will contribute to a part of a bigger project at the relief sale’s tent, where their various donated objects will be sold.
“Every year they make somewhere between $400,000 and half a million dollars, and the sale tent is one small part of it,” Crone said.
Fabric for today’s project was donated by guild members. It’s all cut up ready for the ladies to use, with patterns and instructions placed in sewing kits made up by the three organizers. After that volunteers will work on about 70 pieces from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with hopes of getting everything done, if not by the end of the day then by the guild’s next meeting.
This is only one of the various projects undertaken by the guild, Crone said, but it reflects the annual charitable endeavors of its members.
“A lot of people in the guild also feel that it is important to do things that can be donated for some cause or another.”
