Stitching Together a New Life

There’s a quilt I saw this week that’s covered with memories. It shows a young auburn-haired girl, maybe 7 years old, wearing a pink dress and carrying a spring bouquet of flowers. Lilacs hang near her head as she stands next to a sign announcing a duck crossing.

Juanita Swarts, 72, of Fullerton made that 30-by-30-inch quilt. Every stitch was woven with love for a childhood she never had. The little girl, you see, is Swarts herself.

Swarts was a child of the Depression, she explained, raised in hardscrabble times on the plains of South Dakota.

“I never had a pink dress when I was a girl,” she said. “I always wished I did.”

Swarts is a champion quilter with the Orange County Quilters Guild. She’s got two Golden Bears (the equivalent of an Oscar in quilting terms, given for winning state championships) and a host of other awards. Her girl in the pink dress won this year’s “Challenge” guild contest, in which quilters were given a theme to illustrate. This year, it was childhood memories.

Swarts is pretty busy these days. She and other local quilters are preparing for their semiannual big show. Their quilts will be on display Saturday and Sunday at Irvine Valley College. Also in the show will be numerous antique quilts created earlier this century, many of them worth thousands of dollars.

I talked to several quilters, all of whom said the person I needed to meet was Juanita Swarts. What a pleasure it was.

Swarts follows an artist’s creed I found immensely refreshing, one you rarely see anymore. Swarts’ quilts are worth hundreds of dollars, some into the thousands. But you can’t buy them, not a one of them. She won’t sell.

“They are for my children, and their children,” Swarts said. “I’ve put too much into them to ever part with them for money.”

Swarts has been an artist most of her life. In 1980, a niece talked her into attending a quilting class. Once she started on her own, Swarts found it was the best outlet around for her artistic talents. She had been sewing since childhood, when she made doll clothes from burlap sacks for her sisters.

“All my quilt designs are originals,” she said. “I’ve got so many ideas for quilts I’ll have to live to be a hundred to get them all done.”

The quilters guild meets monthly, but that’s simply not enough for Swarts. She’s also part of a smaller group that meets every other week. They all work on a joint quilt, trading off meetings at each other’s houses. They call themselves Gourmet Quilters.

“We’re all great cooks too,” Swarts said with a chuckle. “We’ve put out two cookbooks.”

Swarts also teaches quilt making and puts on shows of her own. She’s held almost every position the guild has.

All of this, she says, has astonished her family--her husband of 47 years, Carl, their three children and six grandchildren.

“She was always what you might call a loner,” Carl Swarts said. “Quilting has really brought her out of her shell.”

You understand how much Swarts cares about her work when she says: “Quilting lets me march to my own drummer. I’m pretty much a maverick quilter. . . . We use 100% pure cotton, but I’m an artist. You never know what I might choose for material.”

By the way, Swarts and her husband do not have a quilt on their bed. Her explanation why led me to admire her even more: Her quilts, she said, are far too special to her to ever just sleep under.

Wardrobe Space: Some of the most effective people I’ve had the chance to meet while working on this column have been the volunteers at the nonprofit Working Wardrobes for a New Start. The group helps women from 19 shelters in the county prepare for job interviews, first with a series of workshops, then with its annual Day of Self Esteem, when the women are treated to new clothes, make-overs and hairstyles.

Many of these women have gone on to successful jobs, and some even have come back to volunteer at Working Wardrobes.

Here’s a problem the group faces now: Too little storage space for the clothes that have been donated. It’s looking for space to prepare for its October Day of Self Esteem event. Otherwise, the event could be canceled.

“We’re wide open to suggestions,” said Jerri Rosen, a Working Wardrobes volunteer.

You can reach her at (714) 862-9090 if you can help or know someone who can.

Doctor No-No? Quite a few people called or wrote about my column on a few libraries that censor teens’ book selections, all of them adamantly opposed to librarians taking on that subjective responsibility.

Susan Clemente, 46, of Laguna Niguel, says she can still remember the humiliation she felt when she was 13 and a librarian refused to let her check out a particular book. But she’s also never forgotten the tremendous pride she felt when her father “marched me right back and told the librarian his daughter could read any book she wanted.”

The book Clemente was denied: “Doctor Zhivago.”

Wrap-Up: As I sat in the Swarts’ charming living room and listened to Juanita Swarts talk about the joys of what she does, my eyes kept darting to the quilt of the girl in the pink dress. It began to seem surreal. It wasn’t Juanita Swarts I saw in that piece of art; it was my own mother. She was also an auburn-haired child of the Depression, and far too poor to ever have such a special dress.

If you get a chance to attend the quilt show at Irvine Valley College’s gymnasium, you are likely to find many stories of the past. Maybe some will touch you as that one did me.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to [email protected]