By B.C. Manion
Quilt lovers who want to add to their collections will have plenty of choices at a quilt auction Nov. 6 at the “As Our Garden Grows 2010 Quilt Show.”
The show, presented by the Cypress Creek Quilters’ Guild, is slated from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the University of South Florida’s Botanical Gardens, at Pine and Alumni drives at the southwest corner of the USF Tampa campus.
The auction will feature more than 90 quilts. In addition to quilts being sold, about 200 quilts will be on display in the show. The event also features a boutique and items for sale by vendors.
Bidding for most of the quilts will begin at $20, with all of the proceeds from the auction benefitting USF’s Hope House for Eating Disorders.
An event rain date has been set for Sunday, Nov. 7.
Many quilts in the show have interesting names, such as “Every One Loves a Sharp Dressed Man,” by Cathleene Kiel Tokish; “It May Be a Zoo in Here, But it’s a Jungle Out There,” by Pat Reeves; and, “Clowns to the Right, Jokers to the Left,” by Paula Lewis.
While many of the 116 members of the Cypress Creek Quilter’s Guild will have quilts on display, the show is just one of many of the guild’s activities throughout the year.
Guild members come from many communities, including Land O’Lakes, Lutz, Wesley Chapel, Odessa, New Port Richey, Tampa, Brandon and Mulberry. The vast majority of members are women, but there are three male members – and the group welcomes more.
The youngest member of the guild, Katie Nagel, is a teenager; the oldest member, Katherine Coffey, is 89.
Coffey’s daughter, Polly Batista, also belongs to the guild, though she acknowledged she never thought she’d be a quilter.
“My mother started quilting when she was 7,” Batista said. “I wasn’t going to do that. Period.”
As it turns out, however, she had a change of heart and now Batista, Lynn Herndon and Dr. Pauline Powers are co-chairwomen of this year’s quilt show.
During a recent interview, guild members said they came to quilting in different ways.
Powers said she took up quilting years ago as a way to relieve stress caused by a particularly difficult job. She likes the fact she can get lost in her quilting as she concentrates on the work. She likes being able to fit quilting into her schedule when she has a few minutes to spare.
Guild member Joyce Bartholomew said she and her daughter took up quilting as a diversion when Bartholomew’s daughter broke up with her boyfriend.
That was 25 years ago. The ex-boyfriend is long gone, but both women still love quilting. In fact, Bartholomew is showing seven quilts in this year’s show.
Another guild member, Diane Juranko, said she decided to give quilting a try at the encouragement of a friend. Once she took up the craft, she never looked back.
Guild member Cathleene Tokish, who will be showing five quilts at the show, said she was drawn to quilting after seeing gorgeous quilts at a show.
Besides quilting, guild members said they enjoy trying new tools of the trade, attending workshops to learn new techniques and designs, shopping at fabric stores to add more material to their stash and using their talents to help various charities.
They make Quilts of Valor, for instance, to give to service members who have been injured in the war on terror. They also make Breast Cancer Heart Pillows for patients recovering from mastectomies; walker caddies for people in nursing homes; and quilts for kids at Hope Children’s Home.
The guild meets at 6 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month at the Lutz Community Center, 101 1st Ave., N.E. in Lutz. Anyone who is interested in joining the guild or learning more about it should go to www.cypresscreekquilters.org.
As Our Garden Grows 2010 Quilt Show
Where: The University of South Florida Botanical Gardens, at Pine and Alumni drives on the USF Tampa campus.
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 6 (Rain date: Nov. 7)
What: Quilt show features more than 200 quilts, a boutique and an auction of more than 90 quilts. The auction will be from 1-5 p.m. and will benefit USF’s Hope House for Eating Disorders.
Who: The Cypress Creek Quilters’ Guild is presenting the show and auction.
For more information about the show go to www.cypresscreekquilters.org
