Meet our volunteers: Peggy Gelbrich
Peggy Gelbrich, an instructor in our Tuesday morning class, was featured in an article titled “A passion for piecing: through volunteering and teaching, master quilter shares her skills with others” in the October 28, 2014 edition of the McMinnville News-Register. Peggy is an award-winning quilter who taught quilting classes in the community long before joining CCQ. She currently teaches at various Oregon quilt shops including Boersma’s in McMinnville and Sewn Loverly in Wilsonville.
Peggy is also a talented quilt designer. One of her designs, called “Irish Snail,” is an adaptation of traditional snail’s trail and Irish chain blocks. Another one, called “Jacob’s Snail,” combines the jacob’s ladder and snail’s trail blocks to make a quilt that appears to twirl. She offers patterns for some of her designs on her website.
Peggy’s business card reads “helping you learn is my passion,” and that sentiment carries through to her participation in CCQ. Peggy believes that learning to give to others is as important as learning to combine fabrics or sew a seam. In our classes, the first two quilts students make are donated to local organizations. They can keep the third quilt, but many of our students give the third quilt to a loved one.
We invite you to learn more about Peggy in the full McMinnville News-Register article. You might also want to visit her website.
At a recent Coffee Creek Quilters member meeting, several instructors reported heartwarming stories about students who have been released from CCCF. Normally we don’t have contact with former students after their release, but occasionally we receive emails or run into them in the community. Chris told us about a student who found a job at a Newberg hair salon within nine days of her release date. Julie ran into a former student who re-entered the workforce in her field as a physical therapist with a highly regarded Metro-area PT clinic. And Martha received a thank-you email for a CCQ release kit from a student who was so thrilled to receive a sewing machine that she set it up and started to use it as soon as she got home – didn’t even take her coat off.
You can help Coffee Creek Quilters earn donations by shopping at your local Fred Meyer store. Fred Meyer is donating money to nonprofits based on customers who link their rewards card to their favorite nonprofit. This does not affect your personal rewards points; both accounts earn points. It’s a win-win for you and for the library.