Community quilting for a cause

Peggy Dunlop started the Brooktondale Community Quilters in 1974 as a way to fundraise for the Brooktondale Community Center (BCC). While Dunlop is still involved, Nancy Hall has headed the group since 2015 when Dunlop took a step back to focus on family matters.

“I started the group to make an annual quilt to benefit the Brooktondale Community Center, through a raffle at the BCC’s Apple Festival, which was in 1974, and continued to head the group for most of the years until 2015.  After that, Nancy Hall took over and revitalized it with a wonderful group of local residents,” Dunlop said. “I have enjoyed continuing to help with the quilts, mainly providing pattern ideas to consider, and fabrics from my stash, but have been unable to do much more since my move to Kendal in 2020, due to my husband’s dementia and recent death.”

Dunlop said that she was inspired to start the group when she saw the quilts, made by Ellis Hollow quilters, that were raffled at their annual Ellis Hollow Fair in September.  

“The Ellis Hollow quilts were always of an original hand-appliqued design, whereas my preference, and that of others in our group, was for traditional quilt patterns, hand-appliqued for many years, and then pieced patterns in more recent years,” Dunlop said. “In the 10 years prior to my starting the quilt group, a framed watercolor painting of the Old Mill had been donated each year by a local artist to be raffled at the Apple Festival. I felt that we could make more money for the BCC with the raffle of a quilt instead.”

Over the years, the location of the quilters group has shifted, from Dunlop’s large dining room table, a basement in the summer, and now the BCC. Dunlop said on a weekly basis, beginning in February, the group made a decision on the pattern, colors and fabric choices. They then made templates for cutting out the pattern pieces, cut out the fabrics using the templates, and then began turning under the edges and basting them under. The basting stitch, also called tacking, is a temporary, long running stitch that holds two or more pieces of fabric together until they are ready for their permanent stitching. 

Dunlop explained the early stages: “Sometimes we farmed out some of this basting work to members who couldn’t attend a meeting. Then we basted the pieces to white squares, using a large template of the quilt block, often using a light box to help with the placement of the pieces in the white square. After that, we would all take our basted squares home and work on the hand appliqueing in our free time. Once the squares were completed and returned, I would trim them to an exact size and then sew them together by machine, sometimes adding sashing between the squares, added whatever border we had decided on, and prepared the backing fabric we decided on.  All fabric was preshrunk in my washing machine and then ironed before using it.” 

Sometimes quilt blocks are stand alone and are not connected to adjacent blocks in the quilt. To give each block its own space strips of fabric are sewn in between the blocks and this is known as sashing.

The first quilt the group ever made, the Bear Paw, was hand-quilted in Dunlop’s living room.  In later years, the group set up the quilt frame in quilter Molly Adams’s basement where they could leave it up and quilt all summer long with the basement providing a cool space to work in. Dunlop said there were 12 women in the group most of the time and usually six or seven would show up to quilt on a given evening once or twice a week. 

Once the quilt was complete, Adams would photograph it by hanging it from her clothesline. For many years, Jane Jorgensen organized the sale of raffle tickets, making sure to find people in as many different occupations and buildings as possible to take packets of tickets to work with them.

“The same basic group of quilters met for many years, with newcomers added. In 2006 or so, many of the quilters had either moved away or died, and I found myself being the main person to keep the quilt raffle going,” Dunlop said. “The quilts were no longer hand-quilted but done on a long-arm machine by a professional quilter. In 2015, after doing several quilts alone, I put a notice in the BCC newsletter, stating that I could no longer do the raffle quilts, and that if the tradition were to continue, others would need to step up to keep the tradition going.” 

Fortunately, Nancy Hall said she would take over, and along with her came a group of younger women who have been enthusiastic about helping to continue making raffle quilts. 

The three women put a notice in the BCC newsletter that said anyone and everyone who wants to come help, no matter the age, gender, or skill set, should come help with the quilt. Hall said that this was how their new base group started. 

“I started about the time that Peggy decided she couldn’t do the quilt anymore,” Hall said. “Myself and two other ladies in town said ‘well we can’t let this tradition flounder.’ We had to keep it going so the three of us decided we were going to do this.”

“Even if you don’t want to sew or aren’t comfortable sewing on this project yet we always need people to help cut out fabric or make templates and iron fabric pieces. On the days we’re working we do have a nice assembly line of people working together on these beautiful projects,” Hall said.  

Hall added that the overall atmosphere and function of the group has not changed much over the years. Everyone is inviting and kind and works together in brainstorming ideas, colors, and patterns for this fundraiser. 

This year is the 60 anniversary of the Apple Festival so the quilters decided that to celebrate this, they would make two quilts to raffle off. Following right behind the Apple Festival will be the 50 anniversary of the Brooktondale quilters in 2024. Hall said they do not have definitive plans, but there will be some kind of celebration decided on at a later date. 

“Nothing could please me more!” Dunlop concluded. Hall is honored and glad to lead the quilters and the wonderful community that has been built through them.