The Story of Sylvia's at Glad Creations

In the spring of 2009, we received a new quilt pattern book at Glad Creations. The title of the book was Sylvia's Bridal Sampler. The author, Jennifer Chiaverini, is also the author of the "Elm Creek Quilts" series of fictional stories featuring a quilting guild in central Pennsylvania. In the sixth book of this fictional series, the members of the quilt guild make a wedding quilt using 6" x 6" quilt blocks for their founder, Sylvia. This led to the book we were looking at, Sylvia's Bridal Sampler, which features patterns for the 140 6" quilt blocks that the guild used in Sylvia's quilt.





Susan and Nancy, owners of Glad Creations Quilt Block in Minneapolis, looked at this book and thought it would be fun to make all these blocks. We talked about how long it would take to actually complete this project. We started wondering if anyone else would want to do it with us. As we talked to our quilting friends around the shop we found out that quite a few people were interested in this project.

So, we decided to start a club. We planned on 2 ½ years to complete the project. We sorted the blocks out by technique and planned club meetings, about 4 times each year, each of which focused on a particular technique. Imagine our surprise when almost 100 people signed up to participate in the club! Our group ranged from fairly new quilters to very experienced quilters and included quilters from all around the Twin Cities Metro area. We shared ideas on techniques and everyone learned and improved their skills.

So here's the result. We have about 40 completed quilts to display. They will be shown in two exhibits. The first will hang January 1 – 10, 2012. The second exhibit, with a completely different group of quilts will be shown January 11 – 21, 2012. Not everyone completed all of the blocks but put together the blocks they did complete into a variety of interesting sets.

What an exciting week it is as folks are dropping off their Sylvia's quilts at the shop, getting ready for the display. What an accomplishment! Congratulations to all who have worked on this project!

Watch our blog for a slide show of the first group of quilts on January 1, 2012. We'll post a slide show of the second group on January 12, 2012. www.gladcreationsquilts.blogspot.com.