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Ginny Maselin, left, Carolyn Call, and Betty Blackwell from Be Joyful Quilting Bee prepare materials during last Thursday’s quilting event at Doyle Community Center.
Ginny Maselin, left, Carolyn Call, and Betty Blackwell from Be Joyful Quilting Bee prepare materials during last Thursday’s quilting event at Doyle Community Center.
A very dedicated group of local ladies meet on Thursdays at the Doyle School Community Center to create gifts for a number of local non-profits and other programs. They previously met at the Red Cross building on Earl Garrett, but moved to the Doyle Center during the reconstruction of the historic school.
“We met in the temporary building while they were doing the renovations,” said Diana Kane, spokesperson for the group. “But now we meet in the beautiful new meeting room.”
One of the members overheard discussion of the Doyle staff about the end-of-schoolyear event planning for high school students who live in the Doyle neighborhood.
“The next time we met we discussed the upcoming event to honor the seniors and decided we would make a quilt for each of the graduates,” Kane said, “so we created 25 quilts for the graduates.”
As it turned out there were only 18 graduates in the neighborhood in May 2022 so there were seven quilts left that will now become the start of quilts for the 2023 graduates next year, Kane added.
The ladies of the “Giver Connection” and from the “Be Joyful Quilting Bee” meet Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and spend the day working together. At the end of the day they take home additional work to be returned the next week. The combined home-produced items are then combined to make quilts and other crafts for many individuals in the Kerrville community.
Twice a year they provide quilts for the Christian Women’s Job Corps graduates.
“They only had six graduates this spring but we are hoping they will have 12 or more in the fall class,” Kane said.
Additionally they present each family who builds a Habitat for Humanity home in Kerrville with a quilted wall-hanging at the dedication of the new home.
Another benefactor of the quilters in the 3-H Youth Ranch in Ingram, an alternative housing program for young offenders who have become involved in the juvenile justice system. The youth are between the ages of 12 and 18.
“We go at Christmas time and present each of the youth with a quilt,” Kane said.
“It doesn’t matter where you give the quilt away, it’s very transformational, especially with the 3-H Ranch kids who come there with nothing,” she added.
Each of the ladies brings her own portable sewing machine and materials each week to Doyle.
“Ninety-five percent of the cloth we use for the quilts is donated, but we have to purchase the batting and backing from monetary donations we receive. People call us and have fabric they can no longer use so we find a use for all of it (cotton, polyester, wool or whatever people donate).”
Kane said the quilters also save funding and buy things that are needed for the Doyle Center. Last week they presented Doyle staff with a large clock to be hung in the large meeting room where the quilters meet.
One of the quilters, Carol Pope, also makes specialized bags containing lap quilts for cancer patients and dialysis patients undergoing treatment. Pope often recycles donated quilts for other purposes also.
“I have as much fun making these bags for people with cancer and on dialysis as I do making quilts,” Pope said, “and no two of them are ever just alike.”
Another benefactor of the quilting group are the clients who come to the Raphael Community Free Clinic on Water Street. An upcoming event at which the quilting group will be making a special presentation will be Thursday, Aug. 25 at 2 p.m. at the clinic. The afternoon event will be part of the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Raphael Community Free Clinic.
Both the Giver Connection and Be Joyful Quilting Bee groups are members of the Hill Country Quilt Guild, which includes several other quilting groups in the area. They sponsor an annual quilt show at the Kerr Arts and Cultural Center which involves a contest in several varieties of quilts. For more information on the annual quilt show or local quilting groups go to www.hillcountryquiltguild.com.
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