Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Coffee Creek inmates craft prizewinning quilt

Quilt marks the end of a bishop's career and the culmination of a woman's outreach project

• By: Amanda Newman  
• Published: 10/20/2009 12:44:36 PM
• Last Updated: 10/20/2009 12:48:18 PM

Submitted photo
The "Bishop's Quilt," made by inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, won first place in the Thimbleberries “Wish You Were Here” Quilt Challenge this year.

The winning entry in Thimbleberries’ “Wish You Were Here” Quilt Challenge this year was crafted by a perhaps unlikely group of quilters: Coffee Creek Correctional Facility inmates.
 
Entry in the contest, part of Portland’s 2009 Northwest Quilting Expo, was a joint effort of students and teachers in the Coffee Creek Quilters program. The group won a basket of fabrics made by the Thimbleberries quilting and sewing product line, worth $1,500.
 
“It was just the most amazing thing, that a quilt made by inmates could win first prize,” said Mary Ann McCammon. A CCQ teacher and president of the group’s board of directors, McCammon participated in the effort, and said it was “amazing to watch” the time and care the students took in making their pieces.
 
Ann Johnson, a CCQ instructor and quilt designer, designed the quilt and students in CCQ’s four classes made sampler blocks to contribute. Instructors pieced the blocks together and stitched the binding. Kayleen Davis, a CCQ volunteer, machine-quilted the project.
 
CCQ students usually work on individual quilts; the contest brought them together to work on a shared project.
 
“We were working with a short deadline,” Johnson said in a press release, “so it was a chance for students to learn about teamwork and time management, as well as the precision skills needed for quilt making. We’re very proud of the students’ effort.”
 
The contest required entrants use at least a half-yard of one of the three Thimbleberries North by Northwest prints. The CCQ group selected one depicting postcards with Pacific Northwest landmarks. The prize-winning piece was dubbed the “Bishop’s Quilt” – it is a gift for CCQ supporter Bishop Sandy Hampton, retiring soon from the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon.
 
McCammon said CCQ was approached by St. Francis Episcopal Church about creating a quilt for Hampton. “We thought it would be most appropriate if the students at Coffee Creek did most of the quilting, rather than the teachers,” she said. They then decided to enter it in the contest, as well.
 
For many students, the quilt represented the improvement they’ve made since joining CCQ.
 
“I'm glad I got to work on the Bishop’s Quilt,” one student expressed in the release. “When I started the class, I had a hard time cutting the fabric straight. Now I’ve contributed to this beautiful quilt.”
 
For McCammon and the others behind CCQ, it marked the difference one woman had made in lives of hundreds of inmates. Program founder KoKo Sutton, who started CCQ with two instructors and two sewing machines, died Oct. 15 of cancer. Since 2002, her inmate quilting program has grown to include about 20 instructors and enrolls 60 to 80 students a year.
 
“It’s just a wonderful example of the impact one person can make,” McCammon said.
 
The Bishop’s Quilt will be presented to Hampton in a November ceremony.
 
CCQ is a nonprofit organization that teaches quilting to Coffee Creek inmates in weekly two-hour classes. Each student makes three quilts over the course of the class: the first two are donated to charities serving seniors, hospitalized or foster children, and terminally ill adults; the third is kept by the student or given to a loved one. Every year, CCQ donates approximately 150 quilts to charity.
 
For more information, visit www.coffeecreekquilters.org.

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