A timeless craft brings students, elders, and a community organization together.

Illinois students quilting project benefits area elders

June 6, 2016 |
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Sandy Wilken's Clothing 3 and 4 students present their quilting projects to Presence Merkle-Knipprath Countryside nursing home residents.

Editor's note: Sandy Wilken, Family and Consumer Science Teacher at Central High School, was a 2015-2016 Grants in Place recipient. Her students' project, "Spreading Warmth, brought students, elders, and a good community organization together. This kind of collaboration is the essence of place-based education.

This first person narrative was penned by Cynthia Stachowicz, a member of the Central Citizens' Library District Quilters.

By Cynthia Stachowicz

The Clothing 3 and 4 classes taught by Mrs. Sandy Wilken at the Central High School were the recipients of a Rural Schools Collaborative Grant. As part of that grant students were making personal bags for wheelchairs and walkers for Presence Merkle-Knipprath Countryside nursing home residents. The students were also to have interaction with the community group, Central Citizens' Library District Quilters.

Recently, students from the classes went to the quilt group and watched as members discussed and displayed a variety of different techniques used in the projects they were completing. Quilters showed hand, machine and paper piecing methods as well as hand and wool applique projects. Various sizes of quilts were shown and the advantages of long arm quilting were discussed. Students were able to see quilting incorporated in items other than the traditional quilt. The students then were given time to ask the quilters questions. The classes were invited to come back and share their projects with the CCLD Quilters.

(Below) Students learn quilting techniques from a member of the Central Citizens' Library District Quilters.



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