Stitching together

• By DARLENE DENSTORFF
• Advocate Ascension section editor
• Published: Jul 9, 2009

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Sewing the perfect quilting stitch is not the top priority for membership in the Krazy Patch 8 Plus 1 Quilting Ladies group.

To join this group, the love of travel, shopping and eating is just as important as quilting skills.

Telling a good story or playing a mean hand of cards is also on the membership checklist.

At the group’s June luncheon at the home of Judy Richardson, the women talked about their dogs, decorating, trips, grandchildren and showed off their newest completed quilts.

Richardson was hosting the luncheon to thank her friends for helping her create a double-wedding ring quilt for her granddaughter Lauren Savoy Keller, who said the quilt is displayed in her living room.

“Everybody did a little bit on the quilt, and I just wanted to thank everybody,” Richardson said. “And, it’s an excuse to eat.”

The group, named after a popular quilting pattern, got its start in 2008 when three sisters joined forces with a few other relatives and friends to share quilting tips.

A few years ago, Bee Breaux and friend Gerrie Englade took a quilting class, and after two lessons “We were professionals,” Breaux joked.

“Soon, our friends saw our quilts and wanted us to help them,” she said.

In addition to Richardson, Breaux and Englade, the group includes Breaux’s sisters Kay Robert and Mary Leader and Tessie Berthelot, Gloria Berthelot, Faye Delatte and Cheryl Roubique. Odelia Hoover, 88, mother of Breaux, Robert and Leader, is an honorary member. Most of the members are related in one way or another. Roubique and Englade are sisters.

The members are quick to point out that their group is different from their grandmothers’ quilting circles.

“We don’t make quilts like our grandmothers made,” Berthelot said.

While the women still do some hand-stitching, most of the work is done on a variety of specialized sewing machines. And, some members are quick to admit they don’t really know how to sew.