I am a member of the Merrimack Valley Quilters from Massachusetts. Since the Fall of 2001 I have been organizing quilting weekends at Bay View Villa, in Saco, ME for the members of my guild. The Villa is a convent and retreat house run by the Good Shepard Sisters. Recently we had our last weekend at Bay View. The Good Shepard Sisters are closing this facility due to the small number of Sisters still living there. We have been to Bay View twice a year since we began and this was our fifteen visit. Over the years we have made friends with many of these wonderful individuals. Last year we decided to get a list of all the Sister's names and we all picked a Sister or Staff member and made a lap size quilt for each.
On our last Saturday afternoon at 1 o'clock we had a tea for the Sisters and presented each with their gift quilt. When someone said, "Go ahead you can open your gifts now." they were like little children on Christmas morning. The happiness of these women turned what could have been a sad weekend into one of great joy and happiness for all of us. We truly got more back than we could have ever given to them. It was such a joyous event and filled with love and gratitude. It is wonderful how quilts say so much about love and our caring feelings.
I would love to share our photos of this event with you. The happiness can be felt in these pictures and all of you deserve to see for yourself how quilts speak to people. After we gave the Sisters the quilts they asked us to their Community Room to see all of the quilts spread out on the chairs. It was a beautiful quilt show for us all. We were so busy watching our own Sister that we didn't get to see the other quilts well and this gave us the opportunity for everyone to see each others quilts.
By the way, the over 700 pastries for this tea were all made by Phyllis Robart, an octogenarian and guild member, who comes to all of our weekend retreats. She did a fabulous job and her hard work is greatly appreciated by all.
Kathy Pearse
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.jpg "2019 Sponsor - BERNINA Q 24")
