Dottie DeBruhl sat with her walker at her side, carefully smoothing the edges of a colorful tapestry featuring Cinderella- and strawberry-print fabrics and an American flag.
DeBruhl, 84, laced thread through the quilt’s layers and tied it to hold the blanket together.
She said she can’t see well enough to sew, but she knows she is making a difference.
“People get to stay a little warmer because of us,” she said.
The members of Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville have been sewing all year long, assembling quilts to distribute to Gainesville’s homeless in the cool winter months.
They will go throughout town in November to Bo Diddley Community Plaza and other areas to distribute their handiwork.
On Tuesday, a group met to finish the season’s last batch of blankets.
Quilting group co-founder Barbara Petersen, 69, said she expects to have about 60 quilts ready to give away. When the group started three years ago, it made 30.
All of the quilts are made by volunteers with donated items, she said.
“I’m not a fine quilter, but I love this project,” Petersen said.
The Rev. Jim Merritt, pastor of the church, said the club’s meetings are styled after old-fashioned quilting bees.
He said the meetings remind him of the socials he attended with his grandmother, at which people gathered their chairs into a circle to sew and socialize.
“It’s very typical of Southern culture,” Merritt said.
Merritt said the group of 10 to 15 active members meets faithfully about every month.
Petersen said each quilt consists of a large piece of fabric, such as a bed sheet, for backing, a layer of an old blanket for insulation and a top patchwork layer.
Petersen said they put the quilts in handmade cloth bags and toss toiletries inside.
“When we get them done each year, we spread them out all over the church, and Rev. Jim blesses them,” Petersen said. “We send them out with that.”
Merritt said the most memorable quilt recipient appeared two years ago on Bo Diddley Plaza. He said a volunteer handed a quilt to a woman in her 80s. She thanked him but declined the gift.
“‘I don’t really need it,’” Merritt recalled the woman said. “‘Is it OK if I give it to that lady over there? Because she really does need it.’”
Merritt said she then stood up, walked over to the other homeless woman and gave it to her.
“It’s the best of it — when you give in a way that enables others to give when they otherwise couldn’t have done so,” Merritt said.
Wilma Smith, 78, displays a quilt stitched by members of Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville. The group has been sewing all year with donated supplies, preparing to distribute the blankets to Gainesville’s homeless.
