People wander around the Plenty United Church looking at the more than 60 quilts at the show.
Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
Members of the Plenty Piecemakers group have been quilting together since 2012 and the core members showed off their latest project on the weekend.
The quilt show took place on May 5 at the Plenty United Church where more than 60 quilts both old and new were draped over pews and racks. The event included a soup and sandwich lunch that was served in the church’s basement by a group of local volunteers.
No admission was charged, but donations were accepted and the lunch helped to raise a bit of money. Proceeds went to support the church and local museum. The show was attended by people of all ages as a couple of mothers brought their children to see the quilts and have a bite to eat.
The Plenty Piecemakers group was established by Carol Schmold, a resident of Plenty. Schmold is a quilt and textile artist and she started the group to teach people from the community and area about quilting and quilting history.
Schmold’s quilt and textile art has travelled across the province as part of Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils tours and the artist has been travelling around to do workshops and to show her work. She was busy talking to people about her quilt art.
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She noted that the quilting group was in the process of working on a new project. The group’s core members were challenged to create several squares using patterns and designs, so the squares could be combined to make a quilt. The members all used the same patterns, but each of the quilts is unique.
Lana McCarthy (left) of Kelfield and Karen Turk of Dodsland take a close look at one of the quilts on display at the Plenty Piecemakers show last weekend.
Three of the members had assembled their squares to form the top of their quilts, but they were only displayed as the tops to show a part of the finished product. One member’s squares had not been assembled to highlight the process.
Schmold said other people from the community were asked to bring their quilts to the show, and also to attach a story to the quilts if it made sense. A couple of the quilts at the show were family heirlooms passed down by generations.
She noted that the group’s project in 2016 was a study of fabrics and textiles from the 1800s, so they would meet to discuss reproduction fabrics and quilts from that era of about 1870 and up. She would present the group’s members with a block pattern and teach them how to create the block, or square. They wanted to recreate the past.
“They’re all the same blocks, but we all designed different quilts with them,” she said, referring to the completed quilt tops and the one uncompleted top. “We were actually trying to reproduce something, so it would look old. It would look like an antique quilt.”
Schmold said the show highlighted the reproduction quilts, but it was also an opportunity for the group’s members to reconnect and show each other their projects. Everyone has a quilt story whether they quilt or not, she said, and each quilt also has its own story to tell.
“The most important thing about a quilt is not how it’s made, but what story it tells,” she said, recognizing that all quilts tell a story and one of her quilts on display at the show told a story about her family including her husband and children.
The event was all about quilting history, so it is why people were asked to bring old quilts to the show. Schmold, who was pleased with the day and turnout, said the earliest quilt on display was from about the 1890s, but it did not resemble the group’s own reproduction quilts.
The vintage quilt had simple flower theme, and it was a generational piece belonging to Sally Germsheid. The quilt was stitched by Germsheid’s great, great grandmother around the late 1890s to be passed down by the family’s oldest daughters. Germsheid wrote that the quilt has been “a wonderful heirloom to cherish.”
Amber Roth, who lives near Ruthilda, is the youngest member of the Plenty Piecemakers. She said if it were not for Schmold starting the Piecemakers group, she might never have started quilting. Her inspiration comes from her children and her grandmother’s quilts.
“I started for my kids,” she said, recognizing that she always loved her grandmother’s quilts for their endearing quality. “It’s something that you can put your heart and soul into and it will last past your years and be loved.”
She noted that, for her, quilting has evolved from being something she wanted to do for her children to being a creative outlet and something she enjoys. Roth said she joined the group and Schmold helped to teach her that quilting could be an art form, but she also does traditional quilting.
Nola Stephens, who lives at Stranraer, was helping out with the lunch, but she also took the time to check out the quilts. She agreed that everyone has a quilt story and thanks to the Piecemakers group, more people will have a quilt story to tell. She added that there were several amazing quilts at the show and as an art form, a quilt is “like a painting.”
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