Betty Dunn displaying her Harry Potter quilt
Mary La Tourelle
Members of the Agave Quilt Guild welcomed the new year playing Quilter’s Bingo, buying up Boutique items, and parading quilts. Everyone had a good time, and we saw some amazing quilts made by fellow members. Betty Dunn displayed her queen-size paper-pieced Harry Potter quilt that took her and friend Beth Furnish five years to complete. It was truly a labor of love and will eventually be gifted to her granddaughter. Betty has been a member of our quilt group for a couple of years but has been quilting for at least 20 years. In thinking about the value of a quilt like this and the cost of the fabric alone, I started down a website rabbit hole and ended up reading about the history of Pima cotton, which is an interesting story that involves our neighbors to the south in the Gila River community.
In the early 1900s a few acres of Egyptian long staple cotton were planted at a Cooperative Station in Sacaton as part of the USDA Cotton Research Center, and Indian farmers planted and harvested the high-quality cotton. Pima cotton has extra-long fibers, making it soft and strong, and it is generally used for high-end clothing, bedding, and towels. Pima cotton is still grown in the U.S. but, according to Gila River Farms, no longer on the Reservation. The type of cotton used for quilts is called “quilters cotton” and is a sturdy, medium-weight fabric made to withstand many washes.
At our next meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 5, Susan Buhl will share information on using the GE Designs Stripology Ruler, a slotted, acrylic grid that helps speed up cutting fabric. On March 5 our speaker will be Gina Perkes, an internationally award-winning quilter who has developed many tools for machine quilters, including ruler templates and stencils for longarm and domestic machine quilting. She has appeared on several quilting shows and is the author of Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting, Appli-Quilting, The Guide to Grids, and Tips for Longarm Quilting. She operates her shop, The Copper Needle, a BERNINA sewing machine and longarm dealership, in Payson, Ariz.
The Agave Quilt Guild meets in the Navajo Room at Sun Lakes Country Club (25601 S. Sun Lakes Blvd.) from September through May, always on the first Wednesday of the month. For more information, please visit our website at agavequiltersguild.com.