[Quick Thumbnail View] [Detailed Thumbnail View] The 2007 Quilt Gallery The 2007 Quilt Gallery now has almost 200 quilts and related items online! Donating something for the Quilt Auction? Print out your Quilt and Non-Quilt signup forms here. (forms in Adobe Acrobat format)

The Quilt Auction

The Quilt Auction -- a sale favorite -- features over 200 beautiful hand made quilts, wall quilts, afghans, comforters and other quilt-related items. The quilt auction tradition is one very special way that Mennonite women and men of Kansas use their abilities to provide resources for those in need throughout our world.

Viewing of displayed quilts begins at 4pm Friday, April 13, when reserved seats for the auction also go on sale. Individuals purchasing reserved seating for the auction will be limited to eight tickets. The quilt auction begins Saturday, April 14, at 8:45am, continuing into mid-afternoon in the Meadowlark Building.

There will be a special mini-auction featuring items not classified as quilts, but which are traditionally interspersed throughout the quilt auction. Included are dolls, afghans, quilt racks and other similar items. This takes place around noon. Refer to the Quilt Buyers' Guide, available for purchase at the sale, for the exact time.

A picture Quilt Gallery of the quilts is now available for viewing here.

Quilt Auction is accepting Visa and Discover cards.

Quilter's Corner

While taking in the Quilt Auction, don't forget to stop by Quilters' Corner and stock up on your quilting supplies. The booth is complete with fabrics, quilt tops, magazines and more.

Quilters' Corner, located in the Meadowlark Building, generated over $12,000 in donations last year, and is expanding its space this year to better accommodate sale shoppers.

Items being offered include finished and unfinished tops, quilt blocks, old or damaged quilts, and linens (such as dresser scarves, pillowcases, tablecloths, chenille bedspreads, doilies, potholders, aprons, and cloth sacks). Also available are quilters' equipment, quilt books, magazines, buttons, wooden spools, patterns, and fabric (including denim, corduroy, flannel and wool).

Those who wish to donate these quilt-related items may bring them to a participating Mennonite Church, or to the MCC Central States office, 121 E. 30th St., North Newton before March 21. For more information contact Mary Beth Goering at 620-241-4107 (mjgoering@dtnspeed.net).

A piece of Hawaii, a stitch of Kansas

A piece of the Hawaiian Islands is coming to the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale in the form of a Hawaiian Quilt -- which was quilted by the Bethel College Mennonite Mission Quilters, North Newton.

"It's probably the one and only Hawaiian Quilt we'll every do," said Viola Unruh, a member of the Mission Quilters.

This unique form of quilting evolved on the islands of Hawaii. According to LoveToKnow Crafts, the four basic elements of a Hawaiian quilt are: whole pieces of cloth are used for the designs, instead of pieces like other quilts; only two colors of fabric are used; the motif is cut using the "snowflake" method; and finally, the design motif is echoed in the quilting.

The quilt top was donated to the group by Jan Hoffman, Denver, Colorado. The group had some uncertainties about tackling the project. The thought of the quilt even possibly being ready for the 2007 sale lead Emmy Midkiff, group member, to say, "We would have said forget it."

Unruh said, "We thought it would be two years before the quilt would have made it to the sale."

The group received the quilt top in March of 2006. It was appliquéd last spring by Louise Thieszen and Deane Frey, members of Mission Quilters. Midkiff figured out the quilting design. She said, they used echo quilting-quilting that follows the outline of the design.

The Mission Quilters meet weekly on Mondays and Thursdays. They average one quilt donated to the sale annually. The group quilts quilts for individuals and uses the profits from it to give to local charities.

Quilt members include: Ethel Abrahams, Deane Frey, Bonnie Goering, Mary Esther Loganbill, Emmy Midkiff, Berta Miller, Evelyn Quiring, Boots Raber, Ruby Reimer, Gladys Regeir, Leona Sawatzky, Louise Thieszen, Viola Unruh, Marie Wedel; readers: Bertha Harder, Ruth Harder, and Martha Stucky (honorary reader); and quilt markers: Eileen Wonders, Newton, and Marieanna Siemens, Inman.

The Hawaiian Quilt is quilt 143 and is now viewable in the online Quilt Gallery.

Passing on a Family Treasure

Gifts donated to the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale range from labors of love-such as hand-crafted furniture-to treasured family heirlooms.

One such treasured gift, dates back to 1873, comes to the sale in the form of a lithograph print.

"When he came to America in 1879, my great grandfather, Peter Klassen, brought an original, copper-etched lithograph picture by Franz Von Defregger of a grandmother praying at mealtime with her young grandchildren," said Vernell Klassen Miller, Hanston. "It has been greatly treasured in our family, and Mennonite Press -- which is, by the way, a lithograph press also -- helped us reproduce the picture. Each copy, itself, therefore is an original lithograph in its own right."

The picture donated measures 171/4"x13.875". It's double-matted, with the prayer, "Komm Herr Jesu, sie Du unser Gast; und segne alles was Du uns bescheret hast. Amen." The frame is about 32" x 28".

"This picture is part of the heritage of the Mennonites who came from Europe, many of whom might consider it a treasure also, like our family does," said Miller.

Print is scheduled for auction around noon as part of the Quilt Auction in the Meadowlark Building.

Excerpt for the history of Lithograph Reprint of: Grandmother's Prayer
By Vernell Miller

Johann Klassen was born in Holland in 1787. He migrated, along with other Mennonites, from the Netherlands to Northern Germany and then to Russia, always seeking a country where he and his descendants could worship God freely, according to "All in Our Family Tree", Elsie H. Friesen Epp, 1983.

Europe, at the time, was not a safe place to worship openly, outside of government-approved sites. Prayers were scripted and recited according to church-sanctioned formulas. Johann's son, Peter, (born in 1832) and his wife and children carried the quest for religious freedom to a new country -- to a "plains" area similar to the "steppes" of Russia, where hard red winter wheat could grow. In 1879 he and his family boarded the ship, The S.S. Switzerland, in Antwerp with one of the Mennonite's migrations to Kansas. They arrived in Philadelphia on June 24, 1879. It is believed that he brought with him an original Defregger copper-etched lithograph of grandmother praying around the table with young children, which his son, another Peter, inherited and passed on, along with German prayer, to another generation. The lithograph is dated 1873.

Beyond the picture's almost universal appeal, intriguing questions remain unanswered:

Given the frugality and practicality of Mennonites and the obvious need to restrict cargo, why did Peter value a picture so highly as to bring it along to be with his family in their new start in a new place...