The 2010 Quilt Gallery

For Ethel Abrahams, North Newton, donating a beautifully crafted hand quilted piece of stitchery for the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale (KMRS) is just the natural thing to do. She's done so for the past 17 years. And this year it's a prize-winning jacket that has garnered Best of Show awards and selected as a semi-finalist at the prestigious Paducah, KY quilt show.

Ten-thousand tiny beads stitched down to blocks of colorful neck-tie remnants form a stippled design hand quilted in gold thread. Now that makes for an elegant jacket!

"It's a fashion jacket," said Abrahams. In other words, "wearable art. You wouldn't wear it working in the garden," she added with a wry smile.

Abrahams used a standard jacket pattern, remnants she ordered from a silk tie factory at five pounds of silk for $5, and myriads of tiny glass beads.

"After receiving the remnants, all bias strips in beautiful colors, it gave me an idea to make a fashion jacket with it," said Abrahams.

She pieced the jacket using blocks of the silk fabric. Then came the countless hours of stitching the beads onto the slippery bias silk in gentle curves, color coordinating them to blend with the colors of the different blocks. She hand quilted along both sides of the beads--known as echo quilting. The woman's medium size jacket has a thin batting and is lined.

"That all took me awhile," was her understatement. A cluster of hand-made fabric flowers is at the left shoulder, and there's a small silk purse to accompany the jacket. Being a great-grandmother herself, Abrahams envisions the jacket on a woman somewhat younger than herself, and hopes it will find a good home.

The jacket will be offered in a special section of non-quilt items during the KMRS Quilt Auction, taking place at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson April 17.

Always an intensely creative woman, Abrahams still enjoys designing, piecing, appliquéing and hand-quilting such projects as bed quilts, large school wall quilts, small wall quilts and doll quilts.

For the Abrahams family donating items for the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale (KMRS) is simply an outgrowth of what the family has been about through the years. Also coming to the sale from the family this year is a restored 1945 John Deere H tractor.

Ethel Abrahams has formerly served on both the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) board and the sale's quilt committee. "I believe very strongly in the program of MCC and the outreach of programs accomplished," said Abrahams.

On four different occasions she and her late husband Norman spent several months in MCC service themselves, and Norman went on eight Latin-American service trips providing services in optometry, as well as doing Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) in the US. A grandson now awaits a long-term MCC service assignment.

But the scope has broadened even farther to include humanitarian services given by a daughter spending time in Ethiopia, and granddaughters serving in Hungary and Uganda, among other needy areas.

SUGGESTED ITEMS:

Fabric:

• Cotton
• Flannel
• Wool
• Denim (cut into blocks)
• Corduroy (cut into blocks)
• Crazy quilt (neckties, satin, velvet, etc)

Finished/Unfinished Tops

Finished/Unfinished Blocks

Old or Damaged Quilts

Linens:

• Dresser scarves
• Pillowcases
• Tablecloths
• Chenille bedspreads
• Doilies
• Potholders
• Aprons

Cloth Sacks:

• Feed
• Flour
• Salt
• Sugar

Quilt Books/Magazines

Quilt Frames/Supplies/Tools

Quilt Patterns:

• Old or new
• Kansas City Star
• Stencils
• Piecing
• Quilting

Notions:

• Buttons
• Wooden spools
• Pincushions
• Quilting tools (scissors, thimbles, etc)
• Old trims (lace, rickrack, etc)