A STITCH IN TIME

2-19-10
 
By LAURA COX : COOPERSTOWN
The love of sewing and quilting is everywhere.
This year’s Fenimore Quilt Club Show is proof positive:  Open through Sunday, Feb. 21, it boasts a record 125 quilts from a record 32 communities – Cooperstown, Fly Creek, Oneonta, Maryland, Norwich, and Richfield Springs, to name a few.
 “Because the show is two weeks and not just a weekend, it has a regional draw,” Jean Lyon, Quilt Club president, said the other day,  “…with some people coming back three or four times over the course of the show. Many groups come from a distance to view it and spend the day in town.”
A quick walk around the room – the second-floor ballroom at 22 Main Street, which houses the Cooperstown Art Association and the village library – shows a large variety of styles and quilting techniques.
Some are hand pieced and quilted.  Others were done by machine.  Some are antiques made long ago.  Others were finished during the final days leading up to the show.  Some are sized for a king; others are made for a doll.
Whether old or new or large or small, each represents hours of sewing, quilting and embellishment.
Many of the two dozen Quilt club Members learned to sew when children or teens from mothers, grandmothers or teachers in school.  But the urge doesn’t seem to really take hold until later in life.
 “There are not many ‘youngies’ in the group,” said Lyon. “Most are post 40 years old.
“It’s a lifestyle thing. Many younger women are taking care of their kids or working and don’t have time or a space to quilt.  You need a corner in the house to set up with your ironing board and sewing machine that you can go back to whenever.
“It destroys the creative process to have to clean it all up every time.”
Lyon and fellow club member Robin Lettis both describing delved into a life filled with sewing after their children had grown up and moved out of the house.
“When my older daughter graduated, the only request she had was, ‘Don’t turn my room into a sewing room,’” said Lettis.
But eventually that was what happened:  She needed somewhere to keep her growing supplies of materials – Robin is interested in all forms of needle craft.
As a young woman, Lyon sewed her own clothes, debutante gowns and bridesmaid dresses, but didn’t really get into sewing quilts or wall hangings until her kids were grown up. She had gone through divorce and she finally had the chance to decide for herself what she wanted to do with her time.
“I’ve always been fascinated with the luster of fabric and the way its changes its look when the grain goes in different directions and the way light hits it,” said Lyon.
She started out with wall hangings and still enjoys what this scale of a project allows her to do. She describes her process as “organic.” She doesn’t start with a pattern, but instead lets the project develop as she works along. 
At some point she started to do portraits of people’s houses on quilts she showed the one she did of Cooperstown’s Barnwell Inn on Susquehanna Avenue during the quilt show a few years ago. Lyon had a solo show of her work at the Cooperstown Art Association last April, including many of her wall hangings and quilts.
Participating in the Fenimore Quilt Club gives members the opportunity to learn from the knowledge of other members and to pick up skills in piecing and quilting that they may otherwise not know. One member may be proficient in Celtic appliqué while another has great tips for how to make stars or broderie perse – a type of embroidery appliqué. 
For examples of the types of projects the quilt club completes stop by the northeast corner of the quilt show and look at the various row projects the club completes together. As part of the project each club member did one row of a certain technique and then the block was passed on to another member to do the next block. The final product features the work of at least four club members.
As part of the quilt show the club always creates a quilt done together by the club members to raffle off at the show. This year’s quilt features a basket pattern where each of the members completed a block featuring a basket of items on it. The personality and styles of each of the members can be seen by examining the various blocks.
The club also participates in many philanthropic projects such as selling their leftover or no longer wanted fabric to raise money for the food bank and sewing lap quilts for residents at Otsego Manor.