Stitchin’ Bees don’t make honey, they make beautiful quilts

by Dan McClelland

Typically Tupper Arts on Park Street is filled with color jumping from canvasses. But on the weekend of July 22 and 23, the color was leaping from fabric in intricately crafted designs when Tupper Lake’s hometown quilt group, the Stitchin’ Bees, took over the place.

Over a dozen members brought their wonderful quilts to display- and some brought as many as five or six and some entered more. They filled the entire show room there.

The club is a mix of permanent and seasonal quilters. The exhibitors this show included year round residents Cindy Bisson, Liz Black, Beth Retzloff, Pam Savard and Donna Sloan; Julie McKim and Redia Spada of Saranac Lake; and seasonal residents Janet Bailey, who spends her time between here and North Carolina, Leslie Gifford and Terry Kinter, both of Pennsylvania, Terry McGuire, who spend three seasons at home in Western New York and Marie Wood of Georgia.

Former Tupper permanent resident Holly Mineau, now of Texas, also entered her quilts in the show.

The show was organized and directed by Janet Bailey, who summers at Eagle Craig Lake. Her organizational skills were most apparent.

The amazing quilts hung one after another along colorful “hallways” in the Tupper Arts spacious second room.

The Stitchin’ Bees have been quilting together for about ten years. Before those ladies began creating their fabric art, Tupper boasted an earlier quilting group, the Raquette River Quilters, whose members included Gerry Godin, Maggie Gillis, Pauline Villeneuve and others. The club began in 1981 with four members. That club hosted biennial quilt shows in the basement of the local library during the 1980s and 1990s into the early 2000s- all of which which drew high praise.

The raffling off of a quilt they all made together went to benefit dozens of important community groups over the years.

The new club fashioned a beautiful quilt that was also raffled off, with proceeds shared by Tupper Arts.

The Stitchin’ Bees meet twice each month during the summer months when most of the members are here, Mrs. Bailey said during their show. “We meet summers at St. Thomas Church and officials there are very generous to us.” Some of our members are members of the congregation, she noted.

She said they send out e-mails of the meetings to about 25 quilters and normally seven to ten show up to sew together.

“And over the winter we do Zoom meetings from our homes around the country.”

She noted that the current show featured 85 quilts, entered by 14 exhibitors.

“We didn’t put a limit on how many the members could enter and we told members to bring as many as they wished.” A few club members entered almost a dozen.

Seven husbands of members hung the quilts on wooden wracks created several shows ago by Jim Bisson. Tupper Arts now allows the quilters to store the frameworks in its spacious basement.

Janet said her members would like to host a show every year going forward. It has hosted about a half dozen shows in recent years, the last one in 2019 before COVID.

“Years ago we did a couple of shows at the Big Tupper lodge and one in a local church.”

Some of the quilts were for sale. Some were family keepsakes and not for sale.

“How do you price a quilt?” we asked Janet.

“We price it by the square inch.” Right now the price is eight cents per square inch, because the price of fabric has increased dramatically in the past year, she explained.

She estimated a queen-sized quilt should sell for in excess of $500, based on that formula.

“Of the ten I’ve entered, only one is for sale,” she admitted.

Many quilters give their creations to loved ones- their children, and grandchildren and other family members. “I’ve maxxed out my grandchildren with quilts,” she joked. “My daughter too told me: ‘Mom, no more!’”

She said many quilters give away their pieces to charities to help with their individual fundraising projects.

The quilts at the recent show came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. On some the fabric colors blended together for a sort of fuzzy effect. In others the patterns and colors are crisp and sharply defined.

Some quilts featured animal sketches and cartoon characters. Some are all about lively designs, heavily accented in bright colors.

Pam Savard and Kim Davies are two members who were distributing programs at the front door and peddling raffle tickets on the afternoon of our visit. They have many quilts to their credit, but neither of them entered this time.

Pam said she has retired from both teaching and real estate and “is flying under the radar these days.” She said quilting is one of the things now that keep her busy and happy.

Kim relocated here a number of years when she was hired by Adirondack Health as nursing director at Mercy Living Center. She and her husband, Bob, built a house on Route 3 in Childwold. Right now she heads the nursing department at SUNY Canton. In recent years she completed her doctorate in nursing and her online teaching certificate and said she is hoping someday soon to work remotely from home, where she also quilts.

For those who missed the Stitchin’ Bees July show, there’ll be more in coming years, the members say. So watch out for them, as the pieces displayed at Tupper Arts last month were nothing short of exquisite!