Annual Quilt Show Showcases Women's Talents

Walking into the Haddam Neck Congregational Church’s Annual Quilt Show this past weekend was like stepping into a rainbow. It took several turns around the room to take in the myriad of beautiful colors and designs of the quilts.

The Haddam Neck Congregational Church outdid itself again this year with its annual show, participants said.

“This is the most homey quilt show I have ever been to,” said Nancy Smith, one of the show’s organizers.

The quilt show started 22 years ago when some of the women in a local quilt club heard of a show in Glastonbury. Liking the idea, the women decided to do a quilt show of their own.

“We realized that there were a lot of people in Haddam Neck that make quilts,” said organizer Dianne McHutchison.

She is one of several church members who donates her time to the annual show. Many of the organizers take time off from work to help set up for the event. Some of the organizers even stay in the church overnight before and during the weekend-long event to keep a watchful eye over the hundreds of quilts on exhibit in the show, some of them valued and antique family keepsakes.

Quilters taking part in the church show bring their quilts in Friday and come back on Sunday to retrieve them. Many of those who take part also attend it, organizers said, paying the $6 admission fee on Sunday when they come to pick up their quilts.

In the Sunday school house next door, which used to be the area’s one-room schoolhouse, there was a makeshift “tea room,” for the show where visitors could buy food donated by church members.  Quilt supply vendors also set up shop inside the Sunday school building and just outside a large white tent housed a tag sale of donated craft items.

The quilt show is the small church’s major fundraiser of the year, with all the proceeds going toward its restoration fund, said McHutchison. Built in the mid-19^th century, the beautiful white church with blue double doors is in need of repairs, she added.

There were all different types of quilts. There was one with sea creatures, one with Disney characters, a dragonfly and a pinwheel design.

One of the most interesting, however, had to be Prudence Sloane’s quilt.

“I inherited a trunk from my mother, this was in the bottom of it,” Sloane said. The quilt contained the names of family ancestors stitched into it.

It turned out the quilt belonged to Phoebe (Burr) Scovil, Sloane’s first cousin four times removed. It was most likely a wedding present from friends and family around 1849. Sewn into each square section of the quilt was a different person’s name.

Sloane’s sister-in-law, Linda Wightman, who was very interested in the family’s genealogy, did research on all the names of the people on the quilt. Wightman even went to Boston to investigate the names in a genealogy library.

Wightman made a booklet and gave it to Sloane as a Christmas present with information on Phoebe and how each person sewn into the quilt was related to her.

Another quilt was started by Doris Olson, but finished by her friends after she died of breast cancer last year. The quilt was placed on her casket at her funeral and later donated to the quilt show by her husband, John Olson.

Many of the quilts, like Olson’s, were gifts.

“They are expressions of love,” said Smith.

Another organizer, Sue Olsen, said she has lived in Haddam Neck all her life.

“I grew up in this church,” she said.

Olsen is one of 12 women who take part in a quilting club. They get together every 4 to 6 weeks and each woman takes turns picking a quilt design. They give the other women the material and the design they need to each do their own square.

They come back together and give the squares over to the woman whose turn it is to pick the quilt. That woman takes all she made and got from her friends and sews it all together. Olsen said she sews whenever she gets a spare moment.

“It’s nice to just sit and sew,” she said.

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