Stitching traditions

<p>Helen Wilbers/FULTON SUN</p><p>Elaine Richards, left, Evalane Meyer, Helen Martin and Betty Crawford stitch away at a quilt. Each year, the Barkersville Quilting Club’s work is raffled off at Tebbetts’ Fourth of July picnic.</p>

Helen Wilbers/FULTON SUN

Elaine Richards, left, Evalane Meyer, Helen Martin and Betty Crawford stitch away at a quilt. Each year, the Barkersville Quilting Club’s work is raffled off at Tebbetts’ Fourth of July picnic.

By Helen Wilbers

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TEBBETTS — Each year, the Barkersville Quilting Club stitches the winter away — and spring, autumn and most of summer, too.

For as long as anyone can remember, the club has created a handmade quilt to be raffled off at the Tebbetts Fourth of July picnic.

“I started quilting in ‘74 when I moved down here,” Betty Crawford said Thursday. “Lucille Robinette invited me to join them. I said that I didn’t know how to quilt and she said I’d learn.”

Members used to take turns meeting at each others’ houses, though now they usually meet at the Tebbetts community building.

“The kids all played under the quilting frame,” Evalane Meyer said.

The group currently numbers at about 1o people. Elaine Richards, who joined last year at the age 65, said she’s the youngster of the group.

“There aren’t many people who call me young these days,” Richards said with a laugh.

The tradition has been going on since she was a little kid, and probably before that, she said.

On the first Thursday of each month, the group gathers at about 10 a.m. They take their spots around the quilt, pick up a needle, thread and thimble and get to work.

“We talk about everything except politics and religion,” Meyer said.

Each stitch is sewn by hand, and it typically takes the full year to finish the project.

Meyers said they aim for about five stitches per inch, and a fellow quilter chimed in to say her grandmother could do eight per inch.

“Sometimes it’s more important to have even stitches,” Richards said.

The pattern — a complicated red and white one — came from the Amish in Versailles, she added.

Tickets for raffle go on sale June 1 and can be purchased from quilting club members, during First Friday suppers at the community center or at the picnic. They cost $1 apiece, or 6 for $5. The picnic takes place June 29 and 30 and July 1, with the drawing happening at the end.