Janice Collins Bailey
I am a member of the Prairie Quilt Guild, which includes almost 300 quilters. Year round, the Prairie Quilt Guild donates quilts to charitable organizations in Wichita and south central Kansas. Since January of 2000, the guild has made and distributed an average of 50 quilts per month, 600 per year, from infant size to single bed size. We also have donated eyeglass pouches, colorful children’s pillow slips donated to the guild, and also a couple of raffle quilts for other non-profits who have asked. During Covid, when the guild could not meet, the Charity Committee held drive-throughs at our meeting site so members could take and turn in quilt kits and finished quilts.
The kits our members take home include the cut pieces for the pattern and the backing for the size of the quilt. They take the kit home, sew together pieces for the top, and return it at a future meeting.
If the kit does not include backing, it is added along with batting (the quilt stuffing that goes between the top and the backing) cut for the size of the top. Then, a volunteer quilter sews together the pieced top, batting, and backing in a decorative pattern.
The next step is to bind the edges. If the quilted piece needs binding, the Charity Committee sews one side of the binding to the top of the quilt, and another person who likes to sew binding by hand takes it home to finish this step.
When the completed quilt is returned, the Charity Committee measures and labels it by its size and possible recipient. The final step is to add a Prairie Quilt Guild label to the back. The committee does this.
- KVC Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, serving children 6-18 years
- The Family Crisis Center, which provides transitional housing to battered women and their children, infant to adult
- ict-sos, helping people in prostitution find a safer way to make a living, mainly teen girls
- The Tree House, which provides supplies and support for new single mothers, serving infants and toddlers
- Southcentral Kansas Mental Health Association’s Comfort Care Program, which supplies a companion for seniors needing a companion in their home, lap robes
- Wichita Children’s Home, serving young people from 12 through 17 years of age, single bed quilts
These agencies can use the smaller size and the types of of quilts our members like to make. Some of our members report that their families have enough quilts, but they still enjoy sewing them, so it’s a win-win all around.
