Quilters sew beds for animals helped by Buddy Foundation
Quilters really know how to chase away the winter blues: they do it with reds, greens, yellow, oranges — and lots of love.
Members of the Northwest Suburban Quilters Guild and their guests came together at the Rolling Meadows Community Center Saturday, March 3, for the second annual Winter Picnic/Charity Sew-in. NSQG members generously donate to charities throughout the year. However, the annual indoor winter picnic is a chance to socialize, learn or share new techniques and sew together for a good cause.
The Buddy Foundation is the guild's newest adopted charity. Marla Burke of Mount Prospect and Sharon Pokropinski of Schaumburg stitched and stuffed beds for homeless cats and dogs made from donated fabric. They also sewed tactile bean bags used to calm hospitalized psychiatric patients at Northwest Community Hospital.
“Our guild has contributed over 300 handmade items to a wide variety of charities since July 2011,” said Sharon Pokropinski, the guild's charity coordinator.
Eighty-four brightly colored pillowcases were created to benefit the ConKerr Cancer Foundation for pediatric cancer patients. The pillowcases will be sent to local hospitals to cheer children with life threatening illnesses.
Have you ever wondered who makes those darling newborn baby hats which they receive from the hospital? NSQG members like Joanne Connolly of Chicago anonymously crochets those tiny gifts guaranteed to make new parents smile.
Other members stitched together quilts for the AFLAC Children's Cancer Center using the ‘jelly roll' quilting technique. Jelly roll quilts are constructed from 40 fabric pieces stitched together end to end to form a long strip which is then stitched together and cut into half and pieced together again, and repeated several times to form a quilt.
Helene Detzner, of Des Plaines is the guild's oldest member at 90 and coordinator for hospice lap quilts. For more than 21 years, she has been sewing and donating hospice quilts for terminally ill patients at the Rainbow Hospice located in Park Ridge. Each hospice patient receives a lap quilt, and it becomes a comforting remembrance for the patients' grieving families.
Quilters share their talent and love for color to welcome babies to the community, support others during difficult times and bring comfort at the very end of life.
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