Patsy Franko described her plans for our Community Service program this year. The main focus will be the Guild’s participation in Chino Valley Schools Sponsor a Student program. The person in charge of that program, Laurie Marley, Family Resource Specialist, was at our meeting and gave a detailed and impassioned presentation about the ongoing need to help homeless children living in Chino Valley. The need is great with 319 children (3-18 years old) classified as homeless in Chino Valley. The community can help in many ways by sponsoring a student, by providing needed items such as school supplies, personal hygiene items, clothing, gift cards for local stores, money, etc. Our Guild is helping by providing quilts and pillowcases to those children in the program. Every month the program gives some type of item to the children, such as backpacks in August, coats in November, swimsuits and towels in May, etc. The quilts the Guild donates will be given out in February. Laurie will let the Guild know the age, gender and interests of the children, so members can make a quilt personalized for each student in the program. Members will be able to sign-up to make a quilt in September, once we know the number of students being sponsored and their age, gender and interests. Currently, 42 students are in the program.

Patsy introduced our guest speaker, Carolyn O'Bagy-Davis.  Ms Davis is here from Tucson and is the author of several books.  She is an anthropologist by training and has been studying and chronicling the traditions of Hopi quilting for over thirty years. During that time she has collected and extensively documented over one hundred of the Hopi quilts. Ms Davis' quilts are being donated to the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The presentation described how missionaries introduced quilting to the Hopi women. Their quilts are  used in baby naming ceremonies , funeral shrouds,  going away quilts as well as other ceremonial quilts.

The quilts are primarily hand pieced and hand quilted using   whatever fabric was available.  Many have a patchwork design, many are scrappy quilts and some feature a star, bird, or butterfly design.  The quilts may also   be hand painted and tied.

There are three mesas on the reservation and  each one has their own distinct style.  Quilts from the 2nd Mesa are influenced by their basket weaving tradition while quilts from the 1st Mesa are influenced by their pottery designs.

Carolyn said if you would like to visit the Hope reservation you should go to the 2nd Mesa Hotel and stop in at their  Hotel shop. Mentioning that you are a quilter is a good  conversation starter and, by all means, bring along  some fabric to give to any Hopi quilter you meet.  At the end of the  presentation, there were  original Hopi quilts, Hopi hand painted blocks, and many of Carolyn's books.

Learn more. . .

Guest presenters: students from Ash Fork High School