Published: June 19, 2008 10:23 am            

Back Roads: Pieced with love

Originally published in the June 13, 2008, print edition.

Lloyd Majerus’ good-natured humor has kept his wife, Angela, in stitches for nearly 64 years.

Angela returned the favor when she started sharing her sewing machine with Lloyd. Family, community members and strangers around the world feel the warmth of this couple’s quilting hobby.

For the past 15 years, Lloyd and Angela have spent the winters making dozens of quilts. After moving from the farm into Bellechester, Angela joined the St. Mary’s Catholic Church mission quilting club. As the number of volunteers declined, Lloyd started coming along to help cut fabric into quilt squares.

The quilting operation has moved to the Majerus’ home but the focus has remained on distributing the finished product to those in need.

Each baby baptized at St. Mary’s church receives a small quilt. Quilts have been raffled at the annual Bellechester Bazaar and donated when there is a benefit for a family in need. The Goodhue County Christmas Project has distributed them as has the Bundles of Love program in Rochester. The Majeruses’ daughter has arranged for quilts to be sent to missions in Honduras.

While the Majeruses volunteer all the time it takes to construct the quilts, other people drop off fabric and the church buys batting in 30 yard rolls. Angela said it takes about five yards of batting for each quilt and she usually uses a bed sheet to back them.

When someone recently asked if she would sell them a quilt, Angela said, “I don’t know what to charge, we have never sold a quilt.”

When Angela’s large, cabinet sewing machine needed repair, she started using a smaller, portable machine. Once the older machine was back in working order, Lloyd suggested they both sew.

“People don’t believe me that I sew, but I do. I kind of like it when I get going.”

When it comes to cutting and sewing, Lloyd has to be fussy. “If the squares aren’t quite straight, I’ll find out about it,” he said with a grin and a nod in Angela’s direction.

The quilts are made without a pattern. The squares are cut to a specific measurement based on the desired size of the finished quilt. The couple likes to try different designs such as laying blocks on the diagonal or cutting rectangular strips. Sometimes Lloyd will cut pieces for two or three days before moving on to the next phase. One large quilt was made using 3 1/2- to 4-inch squares. “That one I thought I’d never get done,” Lloyd recalled vividly while Angela acknowledged that the squares are getting bigger each year.

After the couple has decided on a pattern, Angela lays the blocks out on the living room floor. Once she is satisfied with the placement, she numbers the blocks and rows and turns them over to Lloyd who follows the sequence as he sews them together.

If they are working with a fabric that is more difficult to handle, Angela may do the sewing. She hems the finished quilts and hand ties the layers.

When the couple is not making quilts for charity, they are making them for family members. With seven children, 24 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren (including three sets of twins), Lloyd and Angela just keep sewing.

The grandchildren are receiving quilts as wedding presents and the younger ones have been assured that there are enough to go around. One granddaughter brought a variety of farm print fabrics that she chose for her quilt. The Majeruses created a special pattern that would highlight those designs rather than cut through a scene.

A challenging but rewarding project for the Majeruses was making T-shirt quilts for three of their great-granddaughters. Each quilt used 20 T-shirts that had special meaning to the girls. The knit fabric of the shirts made them hard to work with so they used a cutting wheel instead of a scissors to make the blocks.

While the different shirts made each quilt unique, using the same backing fabric emphasized the fact that they were also a hand-made family treasure.

For Lloyd and Angela, quilting is a great way to spend time together while creating something useful and meaningful.

Their giving and caring nature shows as Angela points out that there is still one bed without a quilt. “We don’t even use one.”

        

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