Seniors show off quilts

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, August 19, 2003

SYBENE -- This week, Norma Lee Fisher gets the chance to show off a few pieces of her family's history.

The South Point resident's mother cooked for sawmill workers in McArthur in the 1940s when a woman named "Granny Penny" gave her a green and yellow quilt. She sent it to Fisher for Christmas. Since then, quilting has become a love affair for Fisher.

This week, the Ironton-Lawrence County CAO Senior Citizens' Center in Sybene gave the seniors the chance to show off their quilt collections. The display will last until Friday.

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Sylvesta Hollback, ceramics class instructor at the center, said the quilt was the idea of her and others at the center who wanted something for the seniors to do. Hollback herself brought 46 quilts, some new and some old. The quilts were also a mix of her own work and other people's including her late mother-in-law.

The show is not a sale, but those who wish to sell their quilts may do so, Hollback said.

Fisher, who brought seven quilts, said some hand-made quilts can sell for as much as $2,600 at places like the Tamarack in Beckley, W.Va. She also loves quilting for the chance to reminisce about her grandmother making quilts on devices hanging from the ceiling that were used.

Despite health problems, Hollback continues to quilt.

"To me, it's exercise," she said. "I've had eye degeneration, carpal tunnel and I still quilt, paint and do ceramics."