Iva Galloway, Inge McAdams and Marilyn Yerke created a pattern of friendship that began more than 25 years ago and is still going strong. That’s when the close friends decided to shop monthly together for sewing and craft supplies.
Three hundred shopping trips later, they can still be found wandering the aisles of Ben Franklin Crafts and Frame Shop in Bonney Lake, where they search for the latest embroidery designs or colorful fabrics. The only respite to their routine occurred after they sadly bid farewell to two other women who had been part of their group; their March venture was the first since losing the second of the pair and her presence was greatly missed.
“They were our precious friends,” said McAdams, a retired Daffodil Valley Elementary teacher.
Each of the women, who are well-liked by store employees, have enjoyed creating handiwork most of their lives.
“I remember learning to sew when I was about 5 years old,” said Galloway, who resides between Sumner and Orting. She spent her childhood in Torrington, Wyo., where she watched her great-grandmother Perkins and Grandmother Harris embroider doilies and dish towels by using the simplest of methods.
“We didn’t have much money,” she said. “So they’d take an embroidered piece and place it underneath the fabric I’d be using.” One of the matriarchs took a silver spoon, rubbed it in her hair or on her nose and then rubbed it onto the fabric until the pattern appeared.
“You used (designs) on everything in those days,” she said. “We had a lot of Sunbonnet Sue patterns. I still have a scarf embroidered with butterflies. “
Galloway sewed her own wardrobe by the time she was in sixth grade and also sewed for her two youngest sisters. She learned much about the art — then, a necessity – from her mother, who could sew anything just by looking at a picture, she said. She made a wool suit for herself as a home economics project in 1944.
That same year, she graduated and married Gene. When he joined the Navy during World War II, she replaced the trim on his shirts not only for him but his Navy buddies as well, she said. The sewing continued through the next few years and she longed to teach her children how to sew. But they expressed little, if any, interest.
“I knew if I asked them to sew, they’d do it to please me,” she said. “But sewing’s always been a part of my life. I just love it.”
Then the day she’d been waiting for arrived.
“They said, ‘we want to learn how to sew like you,’” she recalled.
Today, she’s teaching her grandchildren how to sew. She designed a “Crazy Heart” quilted tree skirt that published in That Patchwork Place Quilt Book. It can be viewed online at www.keepsakequilting.com.
McAdams, who learned how to sew from her mother in Denmark, sews quilts and knits sweaters for her church’s missions group. She finds the time well-spent.
“It’s therapy,” she said. “It’s doing something that gives you a feeling of accomplishment.”
Yerke, who enjoys watching her own granddaughter sew, said she’s particularly fond of the elegance found in Hardanger embroidery and beading.
“The two together are pretty,” she said.
Ben Franklin’s Melody O’Neal understands the women’s interests in handiwork and the benefits reaped from their hobbies.
“Any type of craft, whether it’s sewing, embroidery or quilting, can be a very social thing,” she said. “It connects us with each other. Whenever you create something together or give to someone else, it’s therapeutic.”
For those who’d like to learn how to sew but lack older mentors much like Galloway, McAdams and Yerke had, classes are available at the store in two two-hour sessions, O’Neal said.
“Sewing has been around forever,” O’Neal said. “We see that in the generations that come into the store.”
As for Galloway, she’s convinced the time spent in creating handiwork has been an opportunity for hemming together a tapestry of friendships, one shopping trip and one stitch at time.
“It’s calming,” she said. “Especially if you have a little problem – like all of us do.”
