Monday, October 12, 2009

The Story of the Quilt Top

The Story of the Quilt Top

Messiah's members donated blankets and comforters again this year to help homeless people keep warm in cold weather, and others in the community added their donations.

Among those blankets left at the church was found an original hand-stitched quilt top, it was certainly “vintage” and probably antique. The Outreachers of Messiah Lutheran determined to make a new quilt out of the Butterfly design quilt top. The project was easier said than done.

Barbara Flannery set to work sewing the quilt top onto a new backing. The original green border turned out to be too fragile and fell apart – disintegrated - as fast as Barb could sew it down. She ended up creating an entirely new background for the original antique muslin butterly squares. Then the Outreachers applied the new quilt top to make a finished quilt.

The quilt raffled off on Saturday night has a double heritage: it's first life, represented by the butterfly squares, and the craftsmanship of Barb and the Outreachers who turned a forgotten piece of American primitive art into a lovely comfy quilt for today.

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