Quilts – A Story of Collaboration

The Godly Woman Class comprises a different group of women each year and the curriculum can vary based on what teachers and resources are available. This year's class is the 11th class to learn quilting.

 A few weeks ago, the women were thrilled to receive hand packed quilt kits (photo at left). The zip-lock bags came with all the materials and supplies needed to make a quilt – precut fabric squares, backing fabric, pins, needles, thread and floss or yarn to tie the layers of the finished quilt together.

The ladies were delighted with the bright colors and soft, new fabrics in the kits. After a study in Proverbs 24 and 13 and beginning to learn another project, they spent the rest of the day arranging their squares in appealing patterns and stitching them together into strips to be joined to form the finished quilt top. Most of the women received enough materials to make medium sized quilts while 6 women received what they needed to make large ones.

The kits are created and sent by the Sewing For Others (SFO) group from St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, IA. SFO is a group of women at the church who enjoy working together to sew dresses, shorts, quilts and other items that are then sent with missionaries to areas of need. In March of 2005 a team (photo at left) from the church brought the first quilt kits for the class and some of the team taught the women in the class how to assemble the simple quilts.

A year later in March 2006, HAFF Board member Jane Volker, an experienced quilter, visited HAFF with a team from her Florida church. She taught that year's Godly Woman class how to cut their own fabric pieces and sew them together to make Kings X and Split Rail blocks (collage at left) which could then be joined together like the simple quilt squares from SFO. The women were thrilled to learn of ways they could make beautiful, useful quilts using odds and ends of fabric from other projects. “Reuse and Recycle” has long been necessary in Haiti!

In February 2012 a group of ladies visiting with a team from the Church of the Brethren taught other quilt block patterns as well as how to layer batting between the top and back layers and then decoratively quilt to hold the layers together. These techniques were taught to 4 women employed by HAFF, including Mme Gesson, the Godly Woman class coordinator. For more details on this 2012 class, you can go to the blog posts from that time here and here.

Mme Gesson has passed on to the Godly Woman classes the new techniques she learned in 2006 and 2012 and each class since 2005 has learned quilting. She explained there were two years SFO was not able to send quilt kits so, “I bought and cut fabric so the women could make quilts.” She reported that many Haitian and American guests at the exhibition after the Godly Woman graduation offer to buy the finished quilts. Some of the women sell their quilts on the spot. Others elect to keep them or to sell them later. 

 Mme Gesson noted that quilting is one of the projects the ladies really enjoy and can turn into a cottage industry to augment family finances. Some graduates have come to show her other quilts they have made to sell. She said, “the ladies find a big blessing in the quilts.” 

 Maggie Dameron of St Andrew's SFO group reported, “The women of SFO love putting the kits together and hope we can do so for many years to come.”