![]() “We try to figure out what to do with the fabric that we have,” Pinkelman said. Much of the fabric they use for their projects is donated to them. Residents at the Harris Community Resource Center will be able to keep their quilts when they leave the facility, a hopeful reminder that they are cared for. “It has been a huge challenge but it has been amazing to see how everyone has stepped up and has gotten them done … They are really beautiful and they’ve put such love and care into them.” “We have made 66 twin-sized bed quilts,” Pinkelman said. They started creating the quilts in October 2023 and they are nearly complete. The older veterans are given priority in choosing a quilt.Īlthough they are involved in many projects, the group’s biggest project right now is creating quilts for the beds at the Harris Community Resource Center. “The veterans are able to choose which one they want a week or two before Veteran’s Day.” ![]() “There is a list of all of the veterans who would like to receive them,” Pinkelman said. Some members of the community who aren’t in the group also help to create the blankets.Įach year, during Tooele City’s Veteran’s Day program, the quilts are given out to the veterans. Since they started participating in the project years ago, they’ve made hundreds of quilts. One of their most popular projects has been making quilts for veterans. They also make blankets for police officers to keep in their patrol vehicles for victims of accidents. “We make little lap quilts that they can give to the kids who come into the center,” Lay said. Perhaps their biggest project - for a number of years, members of the group have been making blankets for the Tooele County Children’s Justice Center. “We try to find various people or groups in the community that need things,” Pinkleman said. “One of our challenges is we have to bring those in to finish.”ĭuring their time together and during their free time at home, the quilters work on various projects for members of the community. “We call them UFO’s for unfinished objects,” Karen Pinkelman, charity co-chairman of the group said. “We usually have a class or a technique that we talk about and we show our quilts that we are making or have made.”ĭuring their meetings, the group also receives challenges, like creating mystery quilts, hand quilting, and finishing the quilting projects that have been sitting in the back of their closets for years. “We meet together to continue quilting, to teach each other, and to learn new techniques,” Barbara Lay, president of the Tooele County Quilters said. The group meets on the third Tuesday of each month to work on their projects and discuss all things quilting. Now, 37 years later, they have more than 70 members. They began meeting in the basement of the Tooele County building and the group rapidly grew with many talented quilters. They called the group the “Tooele County Quilters,” placing themselves as a chapter under the Utah Quilt Guild. The group was formed in 1986 after a group of local women who were taking quilting classes in Salt Lake City donated one of their homemade quilts to a fundraiser by the Deseret Foundation, now known as the Intermountain Foundation.Īfter their quilt raised $2,050, the second highest amount in the auction, they decided to create a quilting group in Tooele to give back to the local community. ![]() The quilters have also made placemats, children’s balls, and bibs for the elderly. They have made quilts for veterans, the Tooele County Justice Center, the Harris Community Resource Center and Mountain West Medical Center. The Tooele County Quilters have been busy perfecting their blanket-making skills and donating quilts to members of the community since the mid 1980s. Two quilters show off their recent quilt they made with complicated patterns and designs.The quilters put many hours and effort into the quilts they make. ![]() The quilters gathered recently to make children’s balls for the local WIC office out of leftover fleece.During their meetings, members of the Tooele County Quilters receive demonstrations related to new quilting techniques and show off the quilts they’ve made.Barbara Lay, current president of the Tooele County Quilters, shows off one of her quilts. ![]()
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