The Sewcial Quilt Guild had been meeting in the quiet home of Elizabeth Kimmel for over a year before putting its talents to work by handcrafting and donating 17 quilts to Family Promise of Carbon County.

The nonprofit organization began running its 90-day sober program for homeless and low income families in 2011.Located in Lehighton, Family Promise connects the families to services and housing around the county through local congregations and community resources.Kimmel said the endeavor took the group of eight women over four months to complete the project.“We were meeting once a month but we weren’t doing anything,” she said.“So I opened my big mouth and put both feet in,” she said with a laugh.“I just asked if anyone who was interested could help or donate fabric. Every quilter has a stash,” Kimmel said.The women came to Kimmel’s home from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to drink iced tea while sewing and quilting their future donations.“Some were in the kitchen, some were in the sun porch. It made me feel so good to come up with something that didn’t cost a lot of money that benefited someone. It built camaraderie having something to do together.”“We’d sit together and put binding on like the Amish did. Everyone felt good about doing it. This was the first project we did together,” she said.Kimmel had been taught to sew by her mother as a little girl but it wasn’t until she found the Quilted Crow in its original Weissport location that she thought she would take up a new skill.“My mother used to make me dresses out of feed bags. She would wash them a bunch of times and put them out in the sun until the material was really soft. I was the envy of the neighborhood with all my dresses, but they were feed bags. It was during the war so we used whatever was on hand.”Kimmel took over sewing as the matriarch as her family making her own clothes along with her children’s and eventually her grandchildren’s.“I made my grandson bee jammies one year and he wouldn’t take them off,” she said.Shortly after the Quilted Crow opened Kimmel started frequenting the shop.“The first quilt I made was at the quilt shop in Weissport. I had gone into the Crow for materials. That was seven years ago,” she said.To date Kimmel said she has made over a dozen quilts, one of which has traveled with a grandson to boot camp.“The Crow is very helpful,” she said. “Cindy Smith has an eye for color.”The Crow made its way to a Lehighton store where the women continued to meet before the shop once again grew out of its space and into a new location in Palmerton. During the move the Sewcial formed in Kimmel’s house once a month.“They have classes at the Palmerton Library. But we’re still meeting here. The new location isn’t big enough. So I said, ‘My house has room.’”According to Kimmel the project really helped create friendship and stitch strong bonds.“There’s no pressure to come here but we couldn’t have gotten to know each other if we kept going to the library.”Natalie Bojko, director of Family Promise in Lehighton, said the nonprofit was happy to receive the donated blankets.“The group who made the quilts is just one more way to show that no matter what your talents are, we can find a way to put them to good use,” she said.According to the director, the quilts will be given to families as they transition into new homes.“This will give them something that they can use to keep warm and always remember that someone out there cares about them,” Bojko said.“Making someone else happy is priceless. We like helping people and we try to as much as we can,” Kimmel said.“Someday I may need someone to help me.”