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Coffee Creek Quilters is offering this gorgeous crazy quilt for sale as part of our fundraising efforts. The quilt was expertly made by CCQ instructor and Board member Judy Dunham. Each block is beautifully machine-embroidered with a variety of flora and fauna motifs. The quilt measures 48″ x 71″. Click on the image to view it in a larger scale. The funds will go toward materials and supplies needed for the quilting classes we teach at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon. UPDATE: The crazy quilt sold on May 19th. Thank you for your interest.  

A presentation of our quilting program was made at the August CCCF Prison Advisory Committee meeting. Instructors described the program and a panel of four students told the committee what the program meant to them. Tom Swearingen, co-chair of the Advisory Committee and a cowboy poet, wrote a poem about our program. He was touched by the work our students do and wrote this poem to celebrate their efforts.

   

For the Coffee Creek Inmate Quilters

So, you say you want to be a giver, not a taker any more And you’re committed to spend the time to tackle that big chore. You’re working through the changes that you know you need to make To get yourself together, no more hearts you want to break. Including yours, because you know the trail that you’ve been on Is one that leads to nowhere, except all kinds of wrong. Why, it’s the one that brought you to the place you are right now But you know there is a better path, and you’ll get on to it somehow. Oh, it won’t be easy, it’s no quick short cut It’s going to take full effort of your brains, your heart, your gut. And support from good people that will help you make it through And show you how to navigate the troubles you’ll come to. But get on that good new road, and your future will unroll You‘ll see the bright horizon even from the darkest hole. You start by picking pieces of your life up off the floor And putting them back together, but better than before. Kind of like a quilter taking scraps and spools of thread And creating a thing of beauty to grace a child’s bed. Or making a treasure of memories for an old man’s final days Stitching quits, giving comfort, in so many lives and ways. Those little squares of yellow, they came from a worn out skirt And that patch of blue that makes the sky, is from an old work shirt. But it’s no matter where those scraps are from, or what they’ve all been through It’s how they’re stitched together now, to make something clean and new. So, you want to be a giver, not a taker any more Grab some thread, and pick those pieces off the floor. -Tom Swearingen

Emily Salisbury, an Assistant Professor in Criminology at Portland State University, spoke at the March CCQ member meeting about the unique needs and risks of women offenders. She explained that women who commit crimes have often experienced lives of extreme poverty, child abuse, ongoing adult victimization, low educational achievement, mental illness, self-medicating behavior with ­alcohol or other drugs, unhealthy intimate relationships, parental stress, and low levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy. In Oregon the same assessment procedures are used for both women and men entering prison. Dr. Salisbury advocates for using a risk/needs assessment instrument developed specifically for women offenders by the National Institute of Corrections. She also argues that treatment programs designed for women should be made available to as many female offenders as possible, not just to women with the highest risk of reoffending. Dr. Salisbury spoke highly of the CCQ program because it offers incarcerated women a safe, respectful place to practice new behaviors. We model healthy relationships which can be especially important for women who have been victimized. For more about Dr. Salisbury’s background and a list of the classes she teaches, see her profile page on the Portland State University website.

A CCQ quilt show with 19 student quilts is on display at the Canby Public Library through the end of April. The exhibit also includes 9 instructor-made quilts which are being offered for sale as part of our fundraising. On April 9th Deb Micaleff, an instructor in our Wednesday evening class, will make a presentation about our program at the library. Deb’s talk starts at 6:30 pm. The quilt shown at left is a student’s second quilt. CCQ’s students learn the basics of quilting with their first quilts: cutting with a rotary cutter, sewing an accurate quarter inch seam, and basic quilting techniques. With second quilts, they learn more advanced techniques such as half square triangles. The Canby library is located at 292 N. Holly, Canby, OR. Please check the Canby Library’s website for their hours.

Three CCQ members volunteered their quilting skills to design and construct quilts for a production of the play Quilters, which is being performed at McMinnville’s Gallery Theater this month. Peggy Gelbrich, an instructor in our Tuesday morning class, designed the quilts shown at left and coordinated the efforts of a group of quilters to make the quilts. Peggy also designed another quilt to be raffled for fundraising. Bobbie Bebereia, a CCQ board member, did the longarm quilting on the quilts in the show and the raffle quilt. And Donna Gilbo, a CCQ member who works behind the scenes assembling kits for our students, worked behind the scenes for the Quilters play too, helping make the raffle quilt on a short deadline. Quilters is the story of a pioneer woman and her six daughters. It blends a series of interrelated scenes into a mosaic, capturing the sweep and beauty, the terror and joy, the harsh challenge and abiding rewards of frontier life. Details about upcoming performances of Quilters can be found on the Gallery Theater’s website. Hurry though — the last performance is March 16th.  

Coffee Creek Quilters is featured in a video available from TheQuiltShow.com, a web-based “TV show” produced by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. The segment on CCQ is part of TQS episode #1205, “Picture This: Simplified Pictorial Piecing” with Sue Rasmussen, a quilter who teaches simplified piecing techniques for landscape and pictorial quilts. The complete show runs 52 minutes. The CCQ segment was filmed in August 2012 at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility by a TQS film crew. It includes interviews with CCQ past president Mary Ann McCammon and several of our students in the Tuesday morning class. It gives viewers a unique opportunity to see how a prison quilting program is run. We thank TheQuiltShow.com for their generosity in creating the video segment about our quilting program and hope you will find an opportunity to watch it.