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Dec. 12--If on a rainy, misty November evening in Orono, you spied women walking alone or in pairs across a wet parking lot, and if they were lugging large tote bags and square cases resembling suitcases, chances are they were members of the Orono Quilters group on their way to a meeting.
The quilters assembled at the old Birch Street school for a "working session" -- a workshop in paper piecing conducted by group member Gloria Buntrock of Orono.
More than a dozen women set up their portable sewing machines -- the Singer Featherweight beloved by quilters everywhere, a vintage Kenmore with a white plastic case decorated with molded roses, and a streamlined Pfaff, to name a few. From their tote bags, veritable Santa's packs of quilt maker's goodies, they drew forth pieces of lovely cotton fabric, quilt batting, cleverly made fabric "wastebaskets" with matching pincushions, snap-lid containers of thread and tins of dressmaker pins with round plastic heads in multihues.
The project they had come to learn to do was an angel wall hanging.
It went a little like this: Buntrock passed out instruction packets that included tiny snippets of fabric barely larger than the average thumbnail. Those were the first pieces to be sewn to the paper template to create the face and hair of the angel figure. The idea was to follow the numbers on the paper template -- first, sew directly onto the paper this tiny bit of brown fabric to the minute square of pink fabric, then two more brown pieces on each side, then some "sky" pieces, then the gold lame for the halo, etc., until the figure was complete.
As they worked, the women conversed about the everyday events of life as well as about all things quilting. One woman told about her recent trip to the International Quilt Show in Houston -- 2,000 quilts on display, quilter's Pole Star, Nirvana and Eden all rolled into one. It was her first trip to the show, and she offered her comrades in quilting this advice: Take along an empty suitcase for the yards of material you'll buy from vendors, and volunteer because that gets you the opportunity to shop for stuff before the show opens. She showed gorgeous pieces of hand-dyed and metal-foiled fabric she bought at the show. She was full of dreams for using those pieces in a future quilt.
The sewing machines whirred beneath the banter and the laughter -- signaling that work really was getting done.
Gradually, the angel forms emerged. The one I was observing, being made by a quilter from Hampden, sported a golden halo, a "sky" of off-white snowflake print fabric, white wings with golden dots, a red robe in a pointillist print with minute dots of black, and a wine-red border in a similar pointillist print.
A woman at another table chose blue batik fabric for her angel's robe, and yet another woman chose a print with stylized pink flowers, which prompted the comment that her creation must be the angel of spring.
Buntrock offered suggestions and ideas and confided that she had made 50 or 60 of the quilted angels, some of which had been for sale when Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bangor held its annual Christmas fair in November. "We called it Angel Alley," she said, adding that it proved to be very popular with fair shoppers.
One woman showed her work in progress, a quilt for her husband, who is a woodworker. Each square sported a tool or other item in her husband's workshop. The design was the woman's own, developed by photographing his tools and making patterns from them. Each "tool" was applied to the flannel squares with fusible webbing.
In another corner, several women admired a box of antique crazy quilt squares the owner found in her cellar. The colors glowed like satiny jewels, and the gorgeous embroidery along the join lines prompted closer inspection in an attempt to learn more about how the squares were made. Quilters are like that, you know.
At the end of the evening a few of the quilters had finished their angels. Everyone else was nearly done. They would finish up at home.
The gathering place was set to rights, thread and fabric snippets were disposed of, the sewing machines and tote bags were repacked and carried out into the mist to be stashed in car back seats and trunks until next time.
Snippets
Those who love to embroider and are interested in becoming members of the Maine Needle Arts Guild should call Michele Goldman at 866-3423, or visit www.fiberphilia.com.
Youngsters just learning to embroider will find interesting and fun projects at the Young Embroiders Guild Web site, www.hiraeth.com/ytg.
Want to knit a pair of stockings using a historic pattern from the 1600s? Go to www.dabbler.com/ndlwrk/stocking.html.
Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Bangor Daily News, Maine
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