Ellsworth church to auction signed quilt on eBay

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Viola Sargent’s inspiration came to her from the most appropriate source, but that’s just the beginning. She conceived a plan to raise funds for an elevator to make Ellsworth’s First Congregational Church more handicapped-accessible.

Sargent, 94, is a member of The Busybodys, a group of churchwomen who meet there each Tuesday for lunch and to work on creating items that are sold at its fall church fair, which this year will celebrate its 125th year.

“I was sitting at the dining room table alone after a meeting,” Sargent said, “and this idea came. It was a voice in my head that we should make a quilt: an autograph quilt.”

The reaction to her suggestion, she said, was somewhat doubtful.

“The women thought, we could never do that,” she said.

“They won’t sign it. We wouldn’t get half of them back,” Sargent said of the idea of mailing pieces of fabric to Maine notables and asking them to return them, with their autographs.

“Well,” Sargent said, “we got them all back.”

After all, she added, “we didn’t ask them for money. We just asked for their signatures.”

And now the church’s autograph quilt is going up for sale on eBay, possibly this week, but at least Sargent said, by the Fourth of July.

“This is a very special quilt, because, I think, the idea for it came from on high,” Sargent said, recollecting the day when that thought came to her.

She describes the quilt as a “unique and beautiful” crazy quilt, with squares from “the fabric of men’s silk neckties, and a few prom dresses and wedding gowns.

“It is nicely embroidered and, in the center of each square is a white piece which has been autographed by someone who has brought honor to Maine.”

The autographs on the quilt include those of Stephen King, Tabitha King, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Linda Lavin, David Rockefeller “and many more,” Sargent said.

The quilt has other valued features, including a sleeve for hanging and a section on the back where “all the women who worked on it will put their names.”

Sargent said the quilt will contain a “pocket on the back to take an 81/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper that will have a diagram on it” identifying which name appears in which square, since some signatures might be more difficult to interpret than others.

If the quilt does not sell well on eBay, Sargent said the women will auction it off sometime in the future.

She is so pleased with the work, and believes it is so distinctive that, “someday, it might end up in the Smithsonian Institution as folk art.”

The Busybodys of the First Congregational Church hope you’ll be checking out their work on eBay soon, and help them help the church install an elevator to make their chapel and Fellowship Hall accessible to all.

On behalf of members of the Bangor Garden Club, BJ Bachman invites you to visit its annual plant sale from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 11, at the gazebo in Paul Bunyan Park on Main Street in Bangor.

The sale features perennials from member gardens, which they grow a little longer and stronger to make them ready for your planting.

You are urged to come early to get the best selections, and reminded that proceeds are used to defray costs to help beautify the area.

BGC planting projects include window boxes and children’s plantings at Bangor Public Library, the Circle of Senses Herb Garden at Bangor Mental Health Institute, a garden project at Elizabeth Levinson Center and Hose #5 Fire Museum, all in Bangor.

The club contributes to scholarships, garden therapy projects at BMHI and the pediatrics ward of Eastern Maine Medical Center, and sponsors bus trips.

For more information about this 51-year-old organization, visit www.bangorgardenclub.org.

I recently received an e-mail from my friend and Maine Discovery Museum board member Susan Carlisle.

She wrote that during June at certain Hannaford stores, proceeds from donated bottles and cans as well as the collection funnels inside the stores, will benefit Maine Discovery Museum, located on Main Street in Bangor.

So, if you’re shopping at a Hannaford store, check to see if your returnables will benefit MDM, the largest interactive children’s museum north of Boston.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.