‘Quilting Forever and Housework Whenever’
Quilting bees aren’t strictly for country folk. They occur in urban living rooms where women of the South Bay Quilters Guild gather to stitch and chat for hours at a time.
“We talk and exchange fabrics and we quilt,” said guild President Neva Buzze. She calls quilting “a woman’s way of expressing herself through fabric.”
The women freely admit to being obsessed with the process of turning scraps of material into the flowers, stars, animals and geometric patterns that make up quilts.
“It’s quilting forever and housework whenever,” said Stephania Bommarito. But even sometimes-neglected husbands approve, she said. “They like our creative outlet because we’re not as crabby.”
“Great Cover-Up”
The ladies of the guild are about to demonstrate what they do in a quilting show Saturday and Sunday called “The Great Cover-Up.” It’s primarily an event to show off their hobby, although miniature quilts will be auctioned to raise money for the group, and a large quilt that all guild members worked on will be auctioned to benefit the Foundation for the Junior Blind. (There will be a special time for the physically handicapped to see the show, from 9 to 10 a.m. Sunday.
“We get together and show off our quilts,” said Bommarito, chairwoman of the show, which will feature heirloom quilts as well as recent work by guild members.
The women also hope to turn others on to quilting, because promoting it was the major reason the guild was formed nine years ago by 12 local quilters. The guild now has 165 members from throughout the South Bay and as far off as Long Beach and Santa Monica.
Quilting is older than America, said the guild’s Claire Moses. Quilts came across on the Mayflower. Frontier women made quilts out of necessity--it was cold in those cabins and covered wagons.
But the 19th Century saw the emergence of the quilt as an art form and personal expression. There were friendship quilts--each block of fabric contained someone’s name--and Victorian “crazy quilts” made of colorful patches of silk, satin and velvet. In the early 1900s, however, the commercial manufacture of blankets brought on a decline in quilting.
The latest quilting renaissance, guild members say, was sparked by the Bicentennial celebration and the country-Western revival. And it looks as if it will be around awhile. Museums and galleries study and display quilts as art. They have become the focal point of plays such as “Quilters,” in which frontier women tell their stories through quilts. Social statements--about such things as the quest for peace and the tragedy of AIDS--are being made with quilts.
Some of the guild members are saying things of their own in quilts that will be seen this weekend. Julie Maas’s “Variable Star” is made of fabrics given to her by guild members and is a thank-you for her term as president, while Betty Lopez’s “Dad’s Roses” is a memorial to her late father, who loved roses.
A quilt called “Fields and Furrows” by Lorraine DeLao is a gift for her granddaughter. But DeLao will have to wait to present it. The child is not due to be born until April.