The Tompkins County Quilters Guild is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Twice a month, the group gathers at the Lifelong community center in Ithaca and hosts community service quilting projects, lectures and workshops.
Joyce Morgenroth, the quilting guild president, said the group provides a social circle for women.
“I think we just enjoy being amongst each other,” she said.
Quilting organizations like this one are an opportunity for quilters to share the creations they’ve worked so hard on.
“I just think the exchange of ideas, the appreciation, both of what you know and the skill that goes into it, the labor that goes into it… it just enhances it,” Morgenroth said.
One of the highlights of every meeting is show-and-tell. Members bring their work to the front of the room, sometimes requiring a helping hand or two to unfurl their quilts for display. They talk about how they make the quilts they’ve completed or are currently working on.
Sometimes members connect their work to the theme of the night’s lecture. At a recent meeting, the talk was about African prints. One member brought up several large quilts featuring intricately patterned fabric.
Many of these quilts have memories attached.
Another member recounted how she came across one of her fabrics in a shop window years ago. The twists and turns of the print look like a DNA double helix.
Some stories are more somber.
Aafke Steenhuis presented her “Giant Cell” quilts during show-and-tell. Her quilts, like many on display that evening, are not just a practical arts-and-crafts project. They’re a deeply personal body of artwork.
Around 20 years ago, Steenhuis had a tumor in her wrist that required multiple surgeries.
Her quilts from that time feature brightly colored cells floating across fabric, a reflection of the rapid cell division in her own body that kept her in and out of doctor’s appointments for years.
“They just kind of flew out of me,” Steenhuis said. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
She starts her show-and-tell with “Giant Cell Number Six”. Steenhuis and the other quilters laugh about just how many giant cell quilts she has.
“Giant Cell Number One” was thought to be lost, until she finally pulls it from the middle of the pile.
“I did not know that I was going to have so many surgeries on my wrist,” Steenhuis said. “But that was 21 years ago.”
The story garners a round of applause from the audience as the quilt returns to a heap of other quilts at the front of the room.
The Tompkins County Quilters Guild meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. The group’s website and social media has more information on meetings and future events, as well as photos of quilts made by guild members.