EXETER — When Sarah Earlley takes needle and thread in hand and works on a quilt, she enjoys the colors, piecing together what amounts to fabric geometry and the wonderful results. And there’s another benefit.
“I like the peace that comes with making them,” said the senior at Wyoming Area Secondary Center. “Somehow all kinds of worries and troubles go away. And, then, somehow, I think of solutions to problems.”
Earlley was part of the eighth annual quilt show in the Wyoming Area gym Wednesday night. Among the dozens of quilts hanging on the bleachers, draped over chairs and hanging on ladders, she had made two. One was very important.
“My best friend is on the autism spectrum,” she said. “And his little brother has autism, too. They were my inspiration for my autism awareness quilt.”
Inspiration brightened the gym on all sides, a stark contrast to the stormy weather outside. But organizer and consumer family science teacher Antoinette Jones held onto hope for better weather on the second evening of the show on Thursday.
“We have so much to offer,” she said. “The students have done amazing work, something they should be very proud of. And we have a variety of fundraisers going on, too. The proceeds will go toward pediatric cancer research.”
Those fundraisers included tables of a variety of sewn articles, ranging from bags and coverlets to lanyards and hair ornaments, pillows and stuffed toys. There were also quilted table covers and wall hangings. One set of students helped to sell tickets for raffle baskets while others staffed the bake sale table.
But the stars of the show were the quilts and their inspiration.
“I got to come to the show last year when a teacher brought our class down,” said senior Alex Modlesky. “There was a quilt with a space theme. It wasn’t finished, but that’s where I got the idea for my quilt.”
Modlesky’s dark quilt with fabric in nebulas was, indeed, completely finished.
“My mom keeps asking me when I plan to sell her that quilt,” he said. “I tell her she’s being funny. It’s gonna be on my bed.”
Connor Spudis, also a senior, was another of several men who tried their hands at cutting fabric, working a sewing machine and doing the hand-stitching it takes to put a quilt together. His quilt, in black, white and bright yellow, sported a Pittsburgh Penguins theme. He also plans to keep it on his own bed.
Others planned to share their talents. Senior Kate Tomlinson not only made a quilt for herself, but worked hard to make a second quilt this year for her brother.
Jones has been offering quilting classes along with the consumer family science curriculum for the past eight years and has a thriving quilting club that meets Tuesday afternoons. Last September, she expanded the program and, along with the basic quilting classes, stepped up the program to a more advanced Quilting II class. She said next year she also wants to teach skills like hand applique techniques and help students create t-shirt quilts.
Although Jones is the teacher in the classroom, she will tell anyone she’s lucky to have a small team of volunteers who can answer questions, help the students develop their sewing skills and be on hand to give hints and tips to make their quilts shine.
She taught her mother Ruth Chepalonis how to piece quilts, and every year her mom has made a bed-sized quilt, complete with pillow shams and matching accessories to be raffled.
And there are volunteers from the community, too.
“I’ve been quilting for about 20 years now,” said Donna Reino, who goes to the quilt club meetings to help the students. “My sister got me into quilting. She told me to start with something small, like a potholder or a table runner. Of course, the first quilt project I did was a king-sized bed quilt. So, I never tell a student not to try something.”
Now in her second year as a quilting helper, Reino said she saw in the newspaper that Jones was looking for volunteers to help guide the students and she made sure to get to the quilt club meeting.
“I can’t stand not to be creating something with my hands,” she said. “Sewing, crochet, knitting, cross-stitch. It’s something I love to do, and I love to share my interests with the kids. It’s so great to see them start a project, work on it, solve whatever problems come up and they have something they can point to proudly because they did it all.”
And very often, they discover that sense of peace.
