[Quick Thumbnail View] [Detailed Thumbnail View] The 2006 Quilt Gallery The 2006 Quilt Gallery is online with over 330 quilts and related items! Donating something for the Quilt Auction? Print out your Quilt and Non-Quilt signup forms here. (forms in Adobe Acrobat format)

The Quilt Auction Janice Reimer, Hesston, had this quilt finished after the death of her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother purchased the material for a quilt for Reimer's mother in 1965-70. Reimer asked Tabith Sommerfeld to finish the quilt in 1970-72. Reimer is now donating the quilt to the Quilt Auction.

The Quilt Auction -- a sale favorite -- features over 250 beautiful hand made quilts, wall quilts, afghans, comforters and other quilt-related items. The quilt auction tradition is one very special way that Mennonite women and men of Kansas use their abilities to provide resources for those in need throughout our world. Viewing of displayed quilts begins at 4pm Friday, April 7, when reserved seats for the auction also go on sale. Individuals purchasing reserved seating for the auction will be limited to eight tickets this year. The quilt auction begins Saturday, April 8, at 8:45am, continuing into mid-afternoon in the Meadowlark Building. There will be a special mini-auction featuring items not classified as quilts, but which are traditionally interspersed throughout the quilt auction. Included are dolls, afghans, quilt racks and other similar items. This takes place around noon. Refer to the Quilt Buyers' Guide, available for purchase at the sale, for the exact time. A picture Quilt Gallery of the quilts is now available for viewing here.

Quilter's Corner

While taking in the Quilt Auction, don't forget to stop by Quilters' Corner and stock up on your quilting supplies. The booth is complete with fabrics, quilt tops, magazines and more.

Quilters' Corner located in the Meadowlark Building generated over $10,000 in donations last year selling quilt supplies and unfinished quilt projects to recycle.

Sale shoppers will find finished and unfinished tops, quilt blocks, old or damaged quilts, and linens ( such as dresser scarves, pillowcases, tablecloths, chenille bedspreads, doilies, potholders, aprons, and cloth sacks). Also available are quilters' equipment, quilt books, magazines, buttons, wooden spools, patterns and fabric (denim cut in blocks, no double knits).

Those who wish to donate these quilt-related items may bring them to a participating Mennonite Church, or to the MCC Central States office, 121 E. 30th St., North Newton before March 15. For more information contact Mary Beth Goering at 620-241-4107 (mjgoering@dtnspeed.net).

From Quilter's Corner to Quilt Auction: Antique Blocks

Numerous items are donated to Quilter's Corner each year, but Mary Beth Goering, Quilter's Corner, knew something was special about one particular donation.

"When the blocks came to Quilter's Corner, I recognized them as being something special," said Goering, "So instead of pricing them to sell at the sale, I purchased the fabric to set them into a quilt top-using a setting which the original maker might have used."

The donor of the blocks remains unknown. According to Goering's research, identical blocks were found on page 105 of Glorious American Quilts: The Quilt Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art by Elizabeth Warren and Sharon Eisenstat. The authors state, "...an example of a quilt made from mail-order designs. The Rainbow Quilt Company, founded in Cleveland in the 1920s specialized in stamped blocks that could be sewn together to form a quilt..."

The quilt is titled "Embroidered Floral Applique Quilt." The quilt in the museum is dated 1930-1940. Goering said, "I would assume the blocks of our quilt to be of similar vintage."

Goering set the quilt top and marked it for quilting. A quiltering group at First Mennonite, Newton, quilted and bound the quilt.

The ladies of First Mennonite, Newton, agree they too believe the quilt to be around 60 years old. The group spoke of a similar quilt they'd worked on a couple years back that was from that era. The ladies enjoy the time of fellowship quilting each Monday.

They said they've worked on the quilt since October--minus most of December--anticipating its completion in February. Quilter's include: Jean Ann Unruh, Sedgwick; Evelyn Smith, Newton; Helen Bachman, Hesston; Belva Unruh, North Newton; Ella Regier, Newton; Irene Ratzlaff, North Newton; and Kathryn Penner, Newton.

Kansas Relief Sale auctioning quilt for Gulf States Mennonite Conference

Story updated March 28, 2006; by Dorothy Goering and Becky Blough

In Kansas, it's easy to relate to a community being tossed upside down by an F-4 tornado. It can change the whole life of a community for a set period of time.

But how do you relate to a whole region that has been tossed upside down by an F-4 hurricane?

People seek to help in both big and small ways. The Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale was presented an opportunity to help in one of those small ways. By special request from Mennonite Central Committee, the KMRS is auctioning off a quilt for Gulf State Mennonite Conference that will benefit Pine Lake Fellowship Camp, Meridian, Mississippi.

The beautiful whole cloth quilt dubbed the 'Conference Quilt' survived the storm tucked safely inside the Mennonite church in Des Allemands, La., that unforgettable August day.

"Annually we hold the Pine Lake Fellowship Camp Benefit Sale & Auction at Des Allemands, Louisiana." said Karen Yoder, Macon, Mississippi.

The benefit auction was scheduled for October, but the struggle to survive the onslaughts of Hurricane Katrina changed things in a hurry. For the past 20 years quilts had been sold to benefit the camp. Last fall the auction was canceled.

"Ever since Hurricane Katrina we have been trying to think how we can sell that conference quilt," said Yoder. "We thought of EBAY and MCC Relief Sales. Someone suggested that I contact Mennonite Women USA. One of the ladies recommended that we contact MCC because they'd worked with them one time in a situation similar to this."

Elsie (Neufeld) Miller, native of Inman now living in the Hesston area, explained that normally seven or eight quilts are sold at the Pine Lake auction which raises about $20,000, providing a fourth of the annual revenue needed to keep the camp running. She'd lived most her life in Gulfport, Miss. Her late husband served on the board of the camp.

With numerous connections to the hurricane zone within the central Kansas area, the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale seemed a logical outlet to pursue. Thus a one-time request was made to the KMRS board to consider auctioning the quilt. The board has a strict policy of only auctioning items for MCC. The board discussed all avenues and decided to auction the quilt as a one-time offering due to the request coming directly from MCC.

The quilt coming to KMRS has the distinction of being the conference quilt--so designated because it is completed as a joint effort of Mennonite women throughout the Gulf area, according to Yoder. Usually the conference quilt has been one with pieced sections sent to the coordinator in sections, but this year's quilt is a whole cloth quilt in an original pineapple design--symbolizing welcome and hospitality--by Christine Williams of Des Allemands.

"Due to the decrease of quilters in our conference, Des Allemands Mennonite and Gulfhaven Mennonite, Gulfport, Miss., took turns hosting the quilting," said Yoder.

The quilt, now representative of Hurricane Katrina's ongoing challenge, is scheduled for auction as part of the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale quilt auction on Saturday, April 8, in the Meadowlark Building at the Kansas State Fairgrounds, Hutchinson.

Camp History and connection to Central Kansas

According to Karen Yoder, the camp started in the early 1960s during the civil rights era to be a safe haven for the different races to come together without having to be afraid of who was watching.

"It is still a safe haven for those who come, but the goal is more on spiritual renewal now," said Yoder.

Elsie Miller also remembers well the years in the late 70s and early 80s when Moundridge natives the late Orlo and Edna Kaufman served as camp coordinators. "Our sons had good times with the Kaufman boys, Eugene and Robert," she said.

Also relating memories relevant to Pine Lake Camp was rural Moundridge resident Ranita Kaufman. "Sometimes it seemed like I practically lived there," she said, "because my dad was constantly doing work at the camp." It was he (the late Vaughn Marner) who helped with much of the early construction there. It was also there that she met her husband Peter who, along with another Moundridge native Roy Goering, spent time helping his Uncle Orlo (Kaufman) with building at the camp.

The camp, now in its 40th year of operation, is a member of the Mennonite Camping Association. Although hurricane damage at the camp was mainly to trees, the most difficult issue to deal with has become the devastation experienced by so many in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who normally support the camp.