Stories from our instructors
Coffee Creek Quilters offers four two-hour quilting classes every week for women incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. For instructors, the classroom experience is so much more than teaching someone to quilt. We learn about our students’ lives and share our own life experiences. Our goal is to nurture students’ self-esteem, so that they will be more successful living in the community after release from prison.
We’ve started a new series of posts on our Facebook page where we share stories about our classroom experiences. We invite you to “like us” on our Facebook page for access to all of the stories in this ongoing series. Here’s the first one:
Stories from our instructors: #1
“I met with a former student today to give her a release kit. We enjoyed a good visit at the local coffee shop. During our conversation she told me about the refusal of some of her family members to reconcile and offer forgiveness even though she assured them that she wasn’t the same person she had been when she entered prison. To me she said “You’re the reason I’m a different person – you and a volunteer in religious services. I’m not changed because of the staff, the officers, or the State. I’m changed because of the volunteers who helped me see my better self.”
–Martha, instructor
CCQ featured in Homespun
The Coffee Creek Quilters prison quilting program was featured this month in the Australian crafting magazine Homespun. “Crafting with Conviction” shows how teaching handcrafts in jails and prisons can have a therapeutic effect.
In addition to our program, two others were also featured in the article.
Fine Cell Work operates in 31 prisons across England and Wales. They train men and women to do high quality, paid, creative needlework. Participants learn the skills in a group setting, then continue their projects in their cells.
The Australian Soft Toy Program and Sit and Knit are for community-based offenders who aren’t incarcerated. Volunteers teach participants to make toys, quilts, scarves, hats, jumpers, and blankets in a group setting. They learn new skills while improving social connections.
We invite you to read this excellent article. KPTV features Coffee Creek Quilters in news segment
We’re excited to announce that Portland’s Channel 12 featured the Coffee Creek Quilters prison quilting program in it’s June 4, 2017 evening news broadcast. The segment gives viewers a glimpse into our classroom and an idea of how much the program means to our students. We invite you to watch. CCQ donates quilts for grieving kids
Every year instructors and students of the Coffee Creek Quilters prison quilting program make quilts for donation to two summer camps for kids who have experienced the death of a loved one.
We make it a quilt “challenge” and this year’s rule was to include the color purple. We vote for our favorites; Sandy Vick earned the most votes in the 2017 challenge with her oh-so-charming appliqued bird quilt.
The quilts will be donated to Camp Erin and Camp Sunrise.
Camp Erin is a national program where young people learn to grieve and heal following the death of a loved one. Funded by the Moyer Foundation and local groups, camps are held in 45 locations in the U.S. and Canada. The camp is free for kids ages 6 to 17. Oregon’s Camp Erin is administered by the Providence Foundation and takes place this year at Camp Kuratli in Boring, OR, August 11-13.
Camp Sunrise is open to kids ages 7-14 residing in Central Oregon who have experienced the loss of a loved one. Structured games, music, art, stories, and other therapies teach bereaved campers about grief and how to understand their feelings. Administered by Hospice of Redmond, the camp is offered at no charge to up to 40 kids each year who live in Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. This year the three-day, two-night camp will be held the weekend of June 16-18. CCQ student quilts entered in Quilt Index
Cathie Gleeson, an instructor in our Tuesday morning prison quilting class, ventured out on the windiest day of the year to have two CCQ student quilts documented at the Oregon Quilt Project’s DocDay in Lake Oswego. Quilt experts at the event identified the blocks, fabric, and batting; measured each block, sashing, border, and the quilt overall; noted quilting patterns and techniques; and photographed the quilts.
Information gathered at DocDay will be entered in the Quilt Index, a project of the Quilt Alliance. The database currently contains records on more than 80,000 quilts. Anyone can access this information 24/7 at no charge.
Quilt historian Mary Bywater Cross encouraged us to have two quilts documented. The quilts chosen are representative of the hundreds of quilts made by women incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility for donation to organizations throughout Oregon. Mary explained that the quilts don’t have to be of great value, antiques, or to have traveled the Oregon Trail. They merely need to reflect quilting in Oregon. She believes our students’ quilts qualify as a unique example of the value of quilting. We do too. A peak inside CCQ’s Thursday class
For a peak inside CCQ’s Thursday class, we invite you to click on over to Missouri Star Quilt Company’s blog where they posted the top three winners of the latest Stitched Together essay contest. Second place went to an instructor in our Thursday class who wrote about her experiences with our prison quilting program.
MSQC had invited their customers to share stories about how quilting made their lives better, touched their heart, or used their quilting skills to make someone else’s life better. The stories will be included in the next edition of MSQC’s Stitched Together book.