Quilters guild enjoys art of stitchery

LIMA - Quilts are practical art. They can hang in museums or keep your children warm at night. Creativity in patterns and colors is as diverse as the quilters who make them and the history of quilting stretches back to the Crusades.

So please ... don't call them blankets.

Quilts have earned the right over the centuries to be a bit snobbish. They've kept crusading knights warm and chafe-free under their armor and donned the lining of petticoats worn by well-to-do British aristocracy. Early American settlers made quilts to combat the harsh winters of their new land and in this utilitarian effort created patterns of detailed beauty.

"(Quilting) just got more and more prevalent," said Carol Ginter, a modern-day quilter and a founding member of the West Central Ohio Quilters Guild. The guild celebrated its 25th anniversary recently.

Quilting is a serious hobby for guild members, and you don't see that level of dedication to your average blanket. But in all deference to blankets, just what does make a quilt not a blanket?

A quilt has three layers to the blanket's one. There is backing, a top and batting in between for that extra thickness. They can be stitched by hand or machine in decorative ways.

Blankets are one piece of fabric with edging. They are purely practical: useful for warmth and in some cases - just ask Linus from the Peanuts gang - for security. Blankets can be beautiful, but they are not art.

Future quilters, are you intimidated yet? Don't be. The ballyhoo about quilts as art is true and well deserved, but every quilt does not have to be a "Mona Lisa." Quilts are beauty in the eye of their beholder and are as unique as the quilter who creates them. Once a few basic rules are mastered, the sky's the limit. For example, guild member Linda Patton recently made a quilt from an enlarged photograph of Oregon's Crater Lake.

And fellas, you don't have to be female to quilt. Ginter's husband, Art, made his first quilt in 1978.

"They tell me I quilt pretty good," he said.

Art is a quilt appraiser and enjoys choosing fabrics, he said. Cotton is the best and a traditional one for quilts, but most any fabric can be used.

Whatever your gender, first-time quilters might want to pick a standard pattern like the "Log Cabin," which Ginter said is one of the easier of the well-known patterns. For ideas and other patterns, there is a wealth of quilting information online and, of course, through the local guild.

According to Carol Ginter, the West Central Ohio guild started out with about 40 members and has since grown to include groups in nine counties and Michigan.

"The small quilt groups can't afford to bring in teachers ... so the guild brings in teachers, does retreats, bus trips," she said.

Meetings are monthly, according to Susan Pardon, guild publicist. A Christmas auction will be in November and a retreat is scheduled for January in Lima. Retreats are a way for guild members to get together to work on projects, "quilting day and night," she said.

And it's that dedication that has transformed quilts over the centuries from the mere practical to "practical art," and truly separates the blankets from the quilts.

For details quilting or the local guild, call Pardon at 419-394-6175.