By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
It would be fair to say that The Art Gallery Osoyoos has not looked so colourful and felt quite so cozy as it currently does. Well, at least since the last time the Osoyoos Quilters Guild members stormed the ramparts of the gallery.
The Guild’s biennial show is currently running at the gallery from Feb.4-25 and is suitably titled ”Quilts Etc”.
One step through the doorway of the gallery and you are immediately transported to a different world. Where neatly framed paintings and photographs systematically spaced between optimal inches of white wall are the norm, instead rich-coloured cotton quilts of all sizes, shapes, and colours adorn seemingly every available inch of wall space.
I casually remark to Kathy Burton, President of the Osoyoos Quilters Guild, and Sherrill Anderson, Vice President, that they’ve missed out on the opportunity to use the ceiling and without missing a beat they turn to each other and laugh that they know what they’re going to do next year.
This is now the guild’s eighth show having first begun in 2008. The quilters meet every Tuesday for nearly a six-hour session that is as much about socializing as it is about quilting. Anderson laughs saying her husband refers to it as a “quilting cult.”
“We just have fun with fabric, we love fabric, we love creating with fabric, making whatever pops into our heads, we follow patterns, we don’t follow patterns, we create, we share, we learn, all that,” Burton says with a laugh.
Anderson adds that the mission of their guild is to foster friendship and advance their skills and love of quilting. “But we also have a community mandate. We do a lot of charitable giving.” This includes donating quilts to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kelowna General Hospital.
“We’ve done about 250 quilts over the last four or five years,” she explains. “They go over the incubators, and all the children go home with their specially made quilt.”
The guild also supports the Country Squire Retirement Villa along with other ad hoc community events where quilts are gifted to those in need or donated as auction items for fundraising.
“If somebody’s had a fire or some trauma, we’ve got quilts and we will take them to give them a hug. So if there’s ever a need in the community, we have quilts available.”
The current show at the art gallery also has a large stunning quilt that has been donated for a raffle. Tickets are $2 and are available at the gallery.
Kathy Burton (left), President of the Osoyoos Quilters Guild, and Sherrill Anderson, Vice President stand in front of a quilt that is being raffled.
Members of the guild, which number about 43 currently, span the skill level from beginner to seasoned pros.
For those perhaps unfamiliar with what quilting is all about, in a nutshell, it’s a backing layer over which batting is laid and then covered with a top layer. It’s then all sewn together creating a sort of sandwich.
The artistry is of course in the front design and the skill enters the picture in sewing it all together ensuring the seams match. Not for those faint of heart when it comes to fine detail work!
This can take days, or weeks or even months depending on the size and complexity of the top panel. Burton says they typically take quite some time “because usually most of us have six things on the go all at once,” she laughs.
The quilts can also be very artistic and something you would hang on the wall, or they can be artistic yet used in a practical way as a blanket for the bed.
Some are composed of scraps of patterned material, others depict a whole scene like a painting while more modern designs tend towards more solid colours.
“We’re all kind of addicted to quilting because you’re always learning something new, you’re always meeting new people, you’re always stretching your boundaries with what you’re comfortable with,” Anderson said.
“But what I really like about it is all the people that you meet”. They also get a lot of snowbirds at their Tuesday drop-in session as they note that couples come for the winter and the wives often bring their sewing machines with them.
“We get to meet lots of people from across Canada and right now we have 11 or 12 snowbirds.”
The guild often gets donations of fabric as people clear out their sewing rooms or in some cases, people pass away.
Quilting cotton is basically just good quality cotton fabric but it’s getting more and more expensive, they note. The donated fabric gets used to make their charitable quilts.
The two also note that there is ongoing interest in quilting even with young people, although they don’t have many young people in the Osoyoos guild. “Young” of course is relative.
One thing that has changed over the years is that there are no longer any quilt shops in Osoyoos or Oliver because online retailing pretty much outpriced them.
Oliver also has an active quilting group called the Double O Quilters Guild which has about 70 members. In fact, many of the quilters in Oliver and Osoyoos are members of both guilds.
