Quilts for Women's Homeless Shelter
Donation protected
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
- Mother Teresa
I can’t solve the problem of homelessness in the world, in the US, or even in Montgomery County, MD where I live.
But I can make quilts. Starting with 65, one for each bed in the Wilkins Avenue Shelter for Women in Rockville MD. Why would I do that?
If you look into the history of women, women’s work, and American patchwork quilting, you find a lot of stories of women reaching out and helping each other. With quilting a lot of patterns moved from the east coast to the west, as women either took the patterns they knew with them when they moved west, or took along quilts made by friends and family in the east they might never see again.
I’ve always seen the Double Wedding Ring pattern, especially, as representing women throughout history, throughout the generations, reaching out to and helping each other... through the good times and the not so good times… not only going forward into the future, but reaching back into past generations as well. Not in a line so much as in multiple circles, so that in some ways you don’t know whose legacy you may be carrying on, or where your contribution will end up, but you can sense you are part of circles of women stretching out behind and in front of you.
To me, quilts are tangible love. A way to show these homeless women, who are likely having a hard time on one or more levels, that they are not alone: that there are circles of women out there who are aware of them, who care about them, who are reaching out to them.
Will you help?
We are so lucky that Capital Quilts , a wonderful quilting store in our community, allows us to come in once a quarter to work on the quilt tops as a group. And a number of women have helped out with the project by donating their time, talent, and extra fabric. We currently have about 25 quilt tops completed, but only four finished quilts (top, batting and backing sewn together).
There were two things I didn’t think of when starting this project: one, that you can only do one thing at a time, and two, that the quilting can take longer than making the top. Purchasing professional machine quilting or rental time on long arm quilting machines costs money. So does batting. This is where we need a little help. I have a great friend who will do the longarm quilting (including the batting) for us for a very low cost, but even a low cost multiplied by 65 adds up.
That is why I am here. Any amount you can donate to help with the costs of batting and quilting, will allow us to finish more quilt tops more quickly.
And it will allow all of us to give this “tangible love” to the women in the Wilkins Avenue Homeless Shelter.
- Mother Teresa
I can’t solve the problem of homelessness in the world, in the US, or even in Montgomery County, MD where I live.
But I can make quilts. Starting with 65, one for each bed in the Wilkins Avenue Shelter for Women in Rockville MD. Why would I do that?
If you look into the history of women, women’s work, and American patchwork quilting, you find a lot of stories of women reaching out and helping each other. With quilting a lot of patterns moved from the east coast to the west, as women either took the patterns they knew with them when they moved west, or took along quilts made by friends and family in the east they might never see again.
I’ve always seen the Double Wedding Ring pattern, especially, as representing women throughout history, throughout the generations, reaching out to and helping each other... through the good times and the not so good times… not only going forward into the future, but reaching back into past generations as well. Not in a line so much as in multiple circles, so that in some ways you don’t know whose legacy you may be carrying on, or where your contribution will end up, but you can sense you are part of circles of women stretching out behind and in front of you.
To me, quilts are tangible love. A way to show these homeless women, who are likely having a hard time on one or more levels, that they are not alone: that there are circles of women out there who are aware of them, who care about them, who are reaching out to them.
Will you help?
We are so lucky that Capital Quilts , a wonderful quilting store in our community, allows us to come in once a quarter to work on the quilt tops as a group. And a number of women have helped out with the project by donating their time, talent, and extra fabric. We currently have about 25 quilt tops completed, but only four finished quilts (top, batting and backing sewn together).
There were two things I didn’t think of when starting this project: one, that you can only do one thing at a time, and two, that the quilting can take longer than making the top. Purchasing professional machine quilting or rental time on long arm quilting machines costs money. So does batting. This is where we need a little help. I have a great friend who will do the longarm quilting (including the batting) for us for a very low cost, but even a low cost multiplied by 65 adds up.
That is why I am here. Any amount you can donate to help with the costs of batting and quilting, will allow us to finish more quilt tops more quickly.
And it will allow all of us to give this “tangible love” to the women in the Wilkins Avenue Homeless Shelter.
Organizer
Billye Joyce Roberts
Organizer
Montgomery Village, MD
