Wiregrass Quilt Guild members stitch present to past

ALBANY — As technology and AI continue to gradually but steadily push the iconic, traditional hand-crafted crafts that were once essential to this country's way of life toward the dust-bin of history, there are those who, through their shared passion for these so-called "quaint" arts, are helping to preserve and even revive those all-but-lost skills.

Count the members of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild among those preservers of a segment of life that the overwhelming modern majority rarely, if ever, gives a passing thought.

First called together 39 years ago at an enthusiast's home in Fitzgerald, the local guild has expanded to include members from throughout southwest Georgia. The quilters, who now number around 70, meet on a rotating basis the second Thursday of each month at locations in Albany, Lee County, Tifton and Fitzgerald.

Rachelle Fowler, the guild's current president, said during a vacation in Alaska she noticed an abundance of quilts on display "everywhere we went." She'd been sewing since she was 12, and as she looked further into quilting, she found something that appealed to her.

"Once I started, I was soon hooked," Fowler said. "I love the challenge of quilting. I'd been sewing so many years, it was no longer a challenge. Quilting allows you to be creative; there are any number of blocks you can do. And even as I started quilting, I discovered art quilts, which are an even greater challenge. I never sell my quilts; I've given some to friends and family and to charitable organizations. This is something that I just love."

In addition to local meetings and events, members of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild display their talents at various fairs and events, many of them collecting ribbons for their talents. A sprinkling of the highlights for this almost-40-year pursuit of what many call a lost art are:

— Member Sue Shippey's quilt is chosen in 1997 to be part of a traveling Olympic Quilt Project;

— Members made a quilt in 1998 for U.S. Olympic ice skating champion Scott Hamilton to comfort him during cancer treatment;

— Member Alice Register's millennium quilt was selected in 2001 as one of 400 finalists in the American Quilters Society's International Quilt Show;

— The guild co-hosted the Georgia Quilt Council Fall Convention in 2001 in Valdosta;

— Guild members made quilt blocks to be included in a piece celebrating Habitat for Humanity's 25th anniversary;

— Members put together 130 muslin quilt blocks in 2002 that were used in a memorial to those lost in the Sep. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.;

— A 20th anniversary exhibit was put on display in 2005 at the Thronateeska Heritage Center in Albany;

— A 2014 exhibit "Threads That Bind" was displayed at the Tifton Museum of Arts and Heritage;

— The guild donates a collection of quilts to the Lily Pad SANE Center in Albany to help comfort assault victims;

— In 2018, guild member Diane Morgan was a semifinalist in the American Quilters Society exhibit at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Ky.;

— Guild member Jimmy Gainey, dubbed the "Quilt King" by quilters, opened his "Twisted Stitches" exhibit in 2019 at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture in Tifton.

Guild member Morgan has been quilting for 44 years. She said a sense of necessity, of creating useful products from scrap materials, appealed to her.

"I grew up with the utility quilts of the 1930s and '40s, made from leftover scraps by my grandmother and mother before I was born," she said. "Around 1980, I decided to make a quilt from the scraps I had left over from making my daughter's clothes. Since my mother and grandmother had already passed away, I had only one Sunset book on quilting with very general directions to tell me how to make a quilt. I cut out squares, sewed them together with my sewing machine, layered it with batting and a backing, and laid it on the floor while I hand quilted it with horizontal and vertical lines.

"A quilting revival started after the bicentennial in 1976. Quilting today is a huge industry with the American Quilter's Society based in Paducah, Ky., putting on four international quilt shows a year, with major prize money in several different categories. The International Quilt Festival in Houston is another major quilt show, which is preceded by Quilt Market for quilt professionals."

The members of the area guild share a passion for quilting, but their stories are as varied as the quilts they make.

Freddie and Beryl Marshal live in New Hampshire but come south for several months during the New England state's harsh winters. They make quilts and donate them to the Methodist Children's Home in Macon.

"We donate quilts to the Warwick Methodist Church locally, but we've been donating quilts to the church in Macon for years," Freddie Marshal said. "We've donated around 58 so far."

Gainey, who started sewing when he was 5, was nudged toward quilting, and he soon turned out work that won him national awards and earned him the "Quilt King" title. His Lee County home is now filled with latest-model sewing machines, thread and materials he uses to make some of the most intricate and lauded quilts anywhere around.

"The problem with quilting is you don't see a lot of young people getting involved," Gainey said. "But quilting has joined the rest of the world in modernizing. There are computer programs now that allow you to program sewing patterns; you can actually control them with your phone.

"There are traditionalists, but like everything else, quilting has moved into this century. A lot of the people who have quilted by hand for years are not that interested in modern technology. But I think that's something that can get younger people interested."

Persons of all ages who are interested in quilting can learn more by talking to members of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild. They can do so by contacting Fowler at (229) 886-5289 or long-time member Janie Rodgers of Fitzgerald at janequilts@outlook.com or calling (229) 424-2669.