News

Best selling author Marie Bostwick has a new novel out called Hope on the Inside. It’s about Hope Carpenter, a woman who finds new purpose in a new phase of her life when she volunteers to teach crafts to women incarcerated at a local women’s prison. Marie’s research for the book included a visit to our Tuesday morning class at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and sharing lunch with the Tuesday morning class instructors. In an acknowledgement, she dedicated the book to Coffee Creek Quilters, “who truly do bring hope to the inside and without whom this book likely would not have been written.” We invite you to read the full acknowledgement. You can learn more about Marie Bostwick and her books on her website and Facebook page.

CCQ has been teaching quilting classes at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility since 2002. Here’s a message we recently received from a student in our very first class: “I was sitting at my table this evening, finishing a quilt, and I thought of the first quilt I ever made. I learned to quilt in the very first cccf quilting class! I think my instructor’s name was Marge….but after this long, I can’t remember. I wanted to email and thank the women who generously donate their time to this program. Quilting has been an outlet for me over these last 17 years and helped me through tough times. Many times, those who work in corrections never hear the success stories, sometimes they are very few and far between. I released in 2003 and I started college. I now have my masters degree in education and work as a teacher at deer ridge correctional institution. Thank you for being a part of my journey and for giving of yourselves to people who many have given up on. I feel blessed for having been a part of your program.” Angie

Just in time for the holidays, CCQ members delivered 23 quilts to Kinship House, a Portland nonprofit that provides mental health services to kids in foster care. The Kinship House mission is to help minimize transitions and increase the chances of children settling into a stable, healthy, and permanent home. You can learn more about Kinship House on their website. In the Coffee Creek Quilters prison quilting program, our students each make three quilts. The first two are for donation to organizations like Kinship House while students get to keep their third quilts. We know that our quilts are much appreciated and look forward to continuing to provide quilts for donation.

Instructors in CCQ’s four classes meet regularly to share ideas about teaching in our prison quilting program. We also use email to communicate with each other. A recent email exchange focused on our goals for teaching. One instructor zeroed in on the technical aspects of quilting:

• How to find the grain of the fabric
• The importance of pressing fabric
• How to accurately cut fabric
• How to sew a 1/4” seam
• How to press seams
• How to connect seams accurately
• How to measure and sew borders
• How to sandwich a quilt and baste it
• How to do simple machine quilting
• How to apply binding, matching the ends for a smooth finish
• How to do blind hand stitching on the back side of bindings
• And how to read and follow a pattern

Another instructor added some non-technical goals:

• The importance of finishing: sometimes it is just a block, then a row, and then an entire quilt
• The importance of learning from mistakes and persevering
• The importance of respecting each other and the instructors
• The importance of taking the time needed to do a good job
• The opportunity for creative expression

CCQ member Liz Weeks made the news recently when she was named Featured Quilter at the 2018 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. Liz made her first quilt in the 1970s, then quit to raise her daughter and teach elementary school. She got bitten by the quilting bug again in 1999 and hasn’t stopped since. Liz likes to make traditional quilts best. She particularly enjoys seeing the patterns and colors come together. “I like my quilts to be useful and for people to find warmth in them,” she says. CCQ was founded in 2002. Liz lived in Tigard at the time and became one of our first instructors after reading an article about it in The Oregonian. Teaching women incarcerated at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility was deeply satisfying to Liz. One of her students told her, “The only time I don’t think about where I am is when I’m here.” When she moved to Bend in 2005, Liz became the Central Oregon Representative for Coffee Creek Quilters; she helps coordinate donations and publicity locally for us. Her other volunteer activities include the Quilts for Kids project, Kiwanis Food Project, and the Sisters Quilt Show. You can learn more about Liz in the NuggetNews.com article “Featured artist finds comfort in quilts“. Thank you Liz for your past, present and future support of CCQ.

Radio station KBOO’s Prison Pipeline program recently interviewed CCQ’s Rachel Wallis to share with their listeners about our prison quilting program. Rachel teaches in our Thursday afternoon class. Rachel was involved in community quilting in Chicago before moving to Portland. She’s an activist who uses art in her organizing work, and an artist who engages in issues of racial and social justice. Rachel believes that traditional textile techniques, and particularly quilting, can provide a platform for creating dialog and understanding around complex ideas and issues. We invite you to listen to the half hour KBOO interview to learn more about Rachel and our program.