The Snohomish-based Busy Bees Quilters Guild’s annual summer show, which takes place today and Saturday, has moved to Craven Farm in Monroe from its longtime home at Snohomish High School’s gymnasium.
The school was off-limits for the group’s show this year because of construction, members say.
Busy Bees, a nonprofit organization, does several community projects. Membership is open to people of all ages, including kids.
The group puts on day camps and retreats so its members can benefit from guest speakers’ sewing techniques and enjoy more time sewing together, but its most notable projects, besides the summer show, are the doll and Gracie quilt programs.
Doll quilts are distributed every Christmas to children in need. Members of the Verizon/Norwesco Pioneer Club provide dolls and doll clothing to accompany the quilts.
In the three years that she has been in charge of this project, doll quilt chairperson Linda Dills says the Busy Bees have made approximately 400 of these quilts.
Gracie quilts, which are given to children with terminal illnesses at Harborview Medical Center, get their name from group member Debbie Fortman’s 4-year-old niece, Grace, who died in 1998 after a car accident. Grace was taken to Harborview, and staff members put what then was called a “bereavement quilt” on her bed. They later gave it to her parents.
“I asked them if they needed more quilts, and they said ‘yes,’ and I told the Busy Bees what had happened, and they jumped at the chance to make more,” Fortman said.
To date, she said, the group has given about 350 Gracie quilts to Harborview, as well as about 125 to Valley General Hospital in Monroe and Providence Hospital in Everett for use by patients in senior behavioral and oncology units.
For anyone who cannot attend this weekend’s show but is interested in learning more about the Busy Bees, meetings take place at 7 p.m. every third Thursday at First Baptist Church, 2500 Lake Ave. in Snohomish, and new members are always welcome.
Those who attend the show Saturday also can expect a tailgate sale of pre-1960s treasures from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., held outside Craven Farm. The quilt show will be set up in the barns. Admission to the tailgate event is $5. See www.cravenfarm.com for details.
Cheerful Gracie quilts are one project of the Busy Bee Quilters Guild.
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