Specialty Outdoors

Penny's Quilt Gallery, and a tribute to Mary Helen Schwyn

Yes, I make quilts too. While not obsessed like some of my quilting friends I do like to play with fabric and color. Craig's mother, Mary Helen Schwyn taught me to quilt. She was a master teacher and artist, very well known in the SF Bay Area. I am so fortunate to have had her guidance. I first took lessons from her when my eldest was new born. She gave me her beginner's sample class on a weekly one-on-one basis. She let me raid her extensive stash, and took me shopping at the Empty Spool and Cotton Patch on a regular basis.

Quilts are a lovely change after all the packs, tents and parkas. I am an anomaly in the quilting world as I usually only work on one at a time. I like to machine piece, do a bit of hand applique, and most recently took a class on invisible machine applique.

Here is a Baltimore Album quilt that I am very proud to have helped on; it's not mine. Here is the story. My mother in law, mentioned above, took on this project as a Piece de Resistance of her quilting career. The patterns for the blocks, (now out of print) were designed by Adele Ingraham, duplicating a quilt that resides in the Smithsonian. Mary Helen had very particular ideas about the fabrics and design of this quilt, and the idea was that she would do the main blocks and that members of her quilt group would do the others. I took on one simple block as my contribution. Someways into the quilt process, Mary Helen was diagnosed with colon cancer. It ultimately took her life, but she continued to work on her large, intricate blocks day in and day out until the very end.

After her death, her sister Janet, also an accomplished quilter took it over, but Janet had an untimely death from a stoke and the project came to a standstill. The quilt blocks, what were completed, ended up in a box in a California garage for a while. I had my hands full with toddlers, but I couldn't stand the thought of it not being done and went to California to retrieve everything and see what was what.

It took some detective work but I was finally able to track down the last few blocks that had not been completed and get the patterns back. I enlisted some friends of mine who applique to help me complete the last few. I either did three or four of the block. As for the rest done by MH's quilt group, they were beautiful. I was finally able to assemble the top in 2002 or so. Mary Helen had many of her group sign their blocks, and those blocks include Alex Anderson, Adele Ingraham, Bernice Stone, and other well known Bay Area quilters.

Alex Anderson came to Spokane several years ago, and I contacted her about the quilt top, to let her know the story and progress. I had met Alex briefly way back when; she was a young member of Mary Helen's quilt group that I had met in the process of bringing the grandbabies around Mary Helen's home. Anyway, Alex asked me to bring the finished top to her talk, where she and I were able to share the story of Mary Helen Schwyn as a quilt teacher, mentor, and loved one. Here is the quilt top, followed by some of my own quilts which pale in comparison. Right now, it remains a top. Mary Helen did beautiful quilting: tiny, accurate, even. There is no way I would ever attempt to do this top.

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