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| Quilter spreads comfort around the world By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 3:15 PM PDT Quilters are famous for having stacks of fabrics left over from previous projects. Sometimes they’re at a loss as to what to do with them. Not Ruth Thorsett, Assistant Librarian II at the Half Moon Bay Library and longtime member of the local Piecemakers by the Sea quilting group. Over the past couple of months, she put her colorful stash to good use, cutting out quilt kits for 25 large (about 40 by 60 inches) quilts. With help from friends in the Piecemakers and also in nearby Pacifica Quilters, she led an effort to stitch up all those quilts for donation to Faces of Hope. This organization, sponsored by Rotary International clubs, sends teams of volunteer surgeons, other medical professionals and support staff, to perform corrective surgeries on children in developing countries who were born with cleft lip and cleft palate. This month, these quilts will go to a Faces of Hope mission in Guatemala. Donating quilts for charitable causes is nothing new for Thorsett and the Piecemakers. Each year for more than 12 years, the quilters hold a quilt exhibit at the Half Moon Bay Library. During the exhibit, the quilters, for fun, create “challenge quilts” based around a few specific fabrics. But the majority of the quilts exhibited are donated to local charities, such as the San Mateo County Mobile Health Care unit which works frequently with Coastside teens, or to Catholic Worker. Last year, Thorsett was approached by Montara resident Tracey Walsh, a veteran of many Faces of Hope trips, where she serves as a photojournalist. The Piecemakers donated several quilts to Faces of Hope that year. Many of those quilts were baby quilts, but Thorsett realized that, while many of the young patients are infants, many others are older children. So she asked Walsh what sort of fabrics might be appropriate for the older ones. “Wild, bright and colorful,” was Walsh’s reply, Thorsett said. “So I got all my stash of the wildest, brightest fabrics I had,” she said. About 25 quilters — women and one man — from the 52 Piecemakers and 74 Pacifica Quilters, helped Thorsett. The Piecemakers have been in existence for about 19 years; Pacifica Quilters, for about eight years. The quilts will be sent along with the volunteer medical team around the middle of July. |