Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Patchwork of quilters help make houses into homes

Nimble Fingers group quilts for Habitat for Humanity

E-mail this article \ Print this article

Brian Lewis⁄The Gazette
Members of the Nimble Fingers Quilt Guild, Cherry Glazer, Mary Hagen, Judy Lundberg, Beth Smith, Jill Ruspi and Susan Sellers, pose with a few of the quilts the group has made for a Habitat for Humanity townhouse community.
The 12 families set to move into Burtonsville’s Linganore Woods Habitat for Humanity community this summer will have a special house-warming present waiting for them.

A brightly colored quilt for each bed in each home — made lovingly by complete strangers.

For the past year, members of the Potomac-based Nimble Fingers Quilt Guild have been stitching together approximately 60 quilts they will donate to Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income families own homes.

‘‘I think it’s important to everybody to have a way to keep warm and to have something beautiful in their life and a quilt does both,” said guild member Beth Smith of Gaithersburg.

The guild will present the quilts to Habitat for Humanity on April 4 at the Church of the Resurrection in Burtonsville. Guild members will also get a chance to see the construction site where the houses they are quilting for are being built.

‘‘It’s definitely going to make it a more satisfying project to see the homes where the quilts are going to stay,” Smith said. ‘‘People get really attached to their quilts. It’s like giving a puppy to somebody, you hope it has a good home and you hope it gets taken care of and that it will be a real gift to someone and they’ll treasure it.”

The Nimble Fingers Quilt Guild exists to educate about quilting and to provide quilts to charitable organizations. Members, ranging in age from mid-30s to early-80s, meet monthly at the Potomac Community Centers to hear speakers.

Depending on size and complexity, it takes an average of 30 hours to make one quilt.

‘‘That’s why I think they should change their name to busy fingers,” said Jessica Reid, volunteer and family services coordinator for Habitat for Humanity.

The organization is coordinating the construction of Linganore Woods. The first 12 townhouses in the community should be complete in May or June. After that construction of 12 more will begin.

About 60 of the guild’s 145 members have been working to make a quilt for each bed in the first set of 12 homes.

‘‘I want to help someone who needs that extra help,” said guild member and Rockville resident Susan Sellers. ‘‘I reflect on the fact that with a different set of circumstances, that could have been me.”

The women don’t mind the work because they enjoy what they do and they believe that a quilt can have a real benefit in someone’s life.

‘‘I think it’s quite a substantial item,” Smith said. ‘‘They’re not just something you would put in a drawer and forget about; they are something you’re going to use and draw benefit from.”

One of the things that the women find difficult when constructing their quilts is that they never met the people they are quilting for. They only have a gender, age and bed size and then they have to pick colors and design based solely on that information.

‘‘It was maybe a little bit of a challenge,” Smith said. ‘‘All you know about the house is that the walls are going to be white. You like to pick colors that you think they are going to like.”

The families moving into the new houses don’t know about the donation yet, but Reid said the quilts will be a nice touch to their new homes.

‘‘I think it’s something they’ll appreciate. It’s nice because it’s a comfort and it ties into their new home,” Reid said. ‘‘For some of the children, it will be nice for them to have something to tie to their new life. I think it’s especially nice for the young kids that are going to be growing up in this neighborhood and this community.”

Besides Habitat for Humanity, guild members make quilts for several other organizations, including the neonatal intensive care unit at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring and Project Linus, a nonprofit organization that provides homemade blankets to children in hospitals and shelters.

‘‘For me it’s one of those random acts of kindness,” Smith said. ‘‘It’s important to spread kindness because you don’t see much.”

 Top Jobs

 Search Directories

Search all directories

Resources

 Search Directories

Search all directories
or pick a category below to search now

Categories