Alliance Women
Ministries
Ohio Valley District of C&MA
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A quilt for the Priests in Russia
The Piecing of a Quilt Submitted by Carla Gutches Cathy Gordon asked me to get together a quilt project that might be suitable for ladies to start during our area fall workday 2001. I was excited about the challenge and began to think about possibilities. Soon, the Lord started filling my head with wonderful designs. In order to accommodate both quilters and non-sewers, I thought a paper-pieced design would fit the bill. After making a stack-n-wack quilt for my brother I had some stunning scraps left that were begging to be resurrected. So, I thought about fixing them to a paper square with a black stained glass-type diagonal stripe. The ladies were asked to fill the rest of the square with various colors and widths of multi-colored stripes and using a pink or red stripe as the last color to combine in the center of a four-patch block. This created the idea of an apple. The Apple of God's Eye became the title of the block. And, when it was combined with the others, the God's Eye pattern began to emerge. (Do you remember making God's Eye at camp using popsicle sticks or twigs and weaving them with yarn?). The ladies responded very well and in a relatively short time, we made a great start on this project. Many women worked diligently to design the patterns. Among them were Cathy Gordon, Lou Adkins, Carla Gutches Janet Ervin (missionary from Burkina Faso), one other dear lady who's name I cannot remember, my daughter Meg Miller, and later my daughter Caryl Bohn. Due to conflicts in schedules, I took on the bulk of the finishing of this project. I began to sew pieces and more pieces and more pieces until finally, the center section was of sufficient size. Now for the borders. The Lord started giving me ideas again--so many that I had to stop trying to implement all of them. About two weeks before Spring Retreat, my daughters and I finished piecing the top. We began to think that perhaps we might not be able to finish the quilt in time. I decided that, finished or not, the quilt would be seen by the women at Retreat. It seemed Satan began to attack our work Cathy Gordon and others shared with us about the attacks that Satan was waging against Ron and Wilma Priest, in Russia. It was then that we decided to present the quilt to the Priests. At that same time, it seemed Satan began to attack our work on the quilt. Instead of feeling that this was a ministry project, we felt that the process had turned into a tremendous chore. We pinned layers 5 separate times. Four times, it was a wrinkled mess. The 5th time, things looked fairly good so I began quilting. I spent 4 hours sewing 1/4 of the top then 8 hours tearing out the stitches. The only thing I could think of was to give up on the machine quilting and hand quilt it in squares. Would we ever finish in time? The quilt became a tool to spread the Gospel After putting the quilt in the floor hoop, a trip to the fabric store was in order to get thread. As I walked in the door, Susan, the woman who ran the shop, told me to go to the classroom to see the "new Toy" she had just received. I went through the store and in to the classroom. Lo and behold, there sat a home version of the industrial quilting machine Meg and I had learned to use a few years ago. The woman at the machine was not really familiar with using the machine and just getting her feet wet. I went back to Susan and said, "Do you believe in God's provision?" She answered "Certainly." And I replied, "You 're it!" I relayed my predicament to her and she decided to allow us to use her machine to sew our quilt. By evening, Meg and I had rebuilt the machine to accept the 100" quilt. The next morning, we began to put it on the frame. Our prior experience proved to be invaluable as the directions accompanying the small machine left much to be desired. The quilt went on the frame very smoothly and the meandering free-hand stitching was begun. The first day went painfully slow because the sewing machine was having one of those "PMS" days that machines seem to be prone to occasionally. But, during the struggles, many curious women gathered around. They just had to see how the machine worked. But, then they would become fascinated with the quilt and wanted to know the quilt story (nearly every quilt has a story). So, I was able to use the quilt's symbolism to share the Gospel of Jesus. How exciting! You see, if I were to have been able to quilt the top at home, I would not have had the marvelous opportunity to witness to so many people that I didn't know. The Lord certainly turned adversity into good for His Sake. Perhaps even, I was able to instrumental in helping another hear words about our Lord, and also see, through our quilt, a picture that would help in their salvation or growth. At any rate, our prayer is that Ron and Wilma Priest will be able to use this quilt as a picture of the gospel, and use it as a witness to their friends and Russian contacts. My husband, Joe, took the quilt to the laundro-mat to be washed and to gain it's character. Finally, it was packed for the journey to "We've Got You Covered ", Spring Rally 2002 in West Harrison, Ind. Thanks be to God for the ladies who helped with the quilt and to all the ladies who were equally as diligent with many other projects started the fall day in 2001. To Ron and Wilma Priest: "We've Got you Covered". With much love, Carla Gutches and all the ladies of the Central Ohio area
Symbolism (pink and red in center of multicolor squares) --Jewish nation--apple (All references quoted are taken from The Holy Bible) |
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