Pine Tree Quilters Guild

It time to sign up for Quilt College!

This year we have 4 of great local instructors, with a variety of classes to choose from.

Kari Bender (The Needle Workshop/The Quilting Workshop)

The Magic of Blackwork: Learn about counted thread embroidery worked on even-weave fabric, traditionally with 1 or multiple strands of black floss.
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Visible Mending (Boro): Boro is currently part of the slow stitching movement that allows for meditative stitching time, either for creation of art or for function of a garment. Patching your clothes is back in fashion!


Mary Wilke (Sew Smart)

Crazy Patchwork: You will learn step by step how to use those scraps that are just too beautiful to toss. After construction, you will have the opportunity to enhance your block with decorative stitches and threads.

Dresden Plate: This class will teach an easy way to make this traditional quilt block. You will learn step by step how to make the plates and assemble them into an 18” quilt block.

Heidi Miller (Created Anew)

Wonky Neighbor: Learn how to paper piece using the tear free method.

Teresa Locknane (Red Spool Designs)

Seasonal Collaged Mini Art Quilt: In this class students will learn the underlay method of collage using Laura Heine’s ‘Whatevers! Flower Truck’ pattern and their own fabrics.


It is easy to sign up for Quilt College – follow the link below to get to the website, or go to NTC’s main web page (ntc.edu) and type Quilt in the search field.

Quilt College 2025 - Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops | Northcentral Technical College Pine Tree Quilters Guild of Wausau proudly presents Quilt College 2025!We are so excited to present four accomplished quilting instructors for a day of learning and sewing! Participants will leave with confidence and actual projects from each class.You will choose two of the six class options when y...

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Aq9WLRgRr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

"Every morning, 74-year-old Edie sat at the same corner of Main Street and Maple with a small wooden crate beside her. She didn’t beg or ask for help. She just sat with a needle, thread, and a handful of buttons.

She started this five years ago after seeing a teenage girl in tattered clothes trying to hold up her jeans with paper clips. Edie mumbled to herself, “A body shouldn’t feel shame over a button.”

So she began showing up every day, rain or shine, with her sewing kit and a crate full of buttons big ones, small ones, plain, fancy, bright, dull. People laughed at first. “What’s that old lady doing?” But then a janitor stopped by. His shirt was missing two buttons. Edie fixed it without a word. He smiled and walked off, shoulders straighter.

Word spread quietly.

Bus drivers came during breaks. Nurses with loose sleeves. A single mom with three kids who needed hems taken in. Even a teenager who whispered, “Can you fix my hoodie? My dad used to...” Edie nodded, eyes soft.

She never spoke much. Just sewed. And listened.

One cold February afternoon, a man in a torn coat stood in front of her, arms crossed. “You really do this for free?” he asked, suspicious.

Edie looked up, squinted through her glasses, and said, “If you pay me, I’ll throw the money away.”

He laughed. For the first time in weeks, maybe months.

His name was Frank. He lost his job, then his home. He told her about sleeping in his car and how ashamed he felt walking into shelters. Edie sewed his coat silently, then handed him a sandwich from her lunch bag. No words. Just kindness.

Frank kept coming back not for sewing, but to sit beside her. One day, he brought extra buttons. Another day, a thermos of coffee. Then he started helping her carry the crate.

People noticed.

Soon, others brought buttons. Old sewing kits. Coffee. Donuts. A retired tailor joined once a week to help with bigger fixes. Teenagers filmed videos of Edie fixing clothes and telling short stories about each button. “This one,” she’d say, “came from a nurse’s uniform. She wore it for 30 years.” The videos went viral.

But Edie didn’t care about fame. She cared about dignity.

“I don’t fix clothes,” she often said. “I fix pride.”

When the town shut down due to a pandemic, people thought she’d stop. But Edie showed up anyway. She stitched masks from old curtains, gave them out like candy, and left buttons on doorsteps with notes: “You’re still whole.”

Today, dozens of “Button Ladies” have popped up across the country, volunteers sitting with needles and thread, offering quiet help to whoever passes by.

But none are quite like Edie.

Because she taught everyone that sometimes, the smallest things, a button, a smile, a moment of listening — can stitch together something much bigger than clothes.

They call it “Thread of Dignity.”

And it all started with one woman... and a box of buttons."

Let this story reach more hearts......

Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson

We saw some great quilts today. Thank you for sharing. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The Quilters on Netflix

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BoBV9T9P2/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The Quilters arrives May 16th.

In this award-winning short documentary, men in a Missouri maximum-security prison design and sew beautiful, personalized quilts for foster children.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/K1j8RoIiMi8

Lots of comments asking so to clarify: This will be available worldwide 🙂

(rule of thumb: if there's a Netflix "stamp" on the poster then 99.9% of the time it will be available on NF across the world)

Closing

We hope that Roxy Baumann heals very quickly.

He is in trouble.

:D

What a great day at the 2024 Pine Tree Quilters Quilt College on Saturday. There were over 85 attendees learning from a choice of 4 different classes - curved piecing, hand needlework, waxed canvas bags and beginning collage quilting! New friends and old, new skills, shopping and lunch at a beautiful facility at Northcentral Technical College. A practically perfect day. A special thank you to our instructors, Mary Wilke (Sew Smart), Heidi Millet (Created Anew), Teresa Locknane (Red Spool Designs) and Kari Bender (Needle and Quilting Workshops).

Quilters register early to get the Early Bird discount. Thanks!

Quilt College 2024 - Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops | Northcentral Technical College Pine Tree Quilters Guild of Wausau proudly presents Quilt College 2024!We are so excited to present four accomplished quilting instructors for a day of learning and sewing! Participants will leave with confidence and actual projects from each class.You will choose two of the four class options when....

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/holocaust-survivor-sews-memories-of-survival-and-resilience/?

Holocaust survivor sews memories of survival and resilience Natalie Morales visited a Holocaust survivor in Long Beach, California, to see how her mother's lessons in stitching saved her life—not once, but twice.