Polk Township Historical Society's annual quilt show, "Stitches in Tyme" will be this Sunday, June 10 from 1-4 p.m. at the Polk Township Vol. Fire Co. in Kresgeville.

Each year the show features the amazing talent and creativity of local quilters, seamstresses and fabric artists."This year we will have a demonstration of how to refurbish antique quilts by Michele McLaughlin of Emmaus and the Lehigh Valley Quilt Study Group, who will also talk about feed sack quilts. There will be raffles, a bake sale and refreshments," says Betty Kunkle, coordinator of the annual event.The show also highlights the works of a featured quilter. This year that spotlight is focused on three generations of quilters ... Nancy Smith, her daughter Christina (Chris) Haas and granddaughter Nicole (Nicki) Haas.Nancy, a graduate of Polk High School and cosmetology school, has been a hairdresser for 50 years and a seamstress longer than that."It seems I've sewed my whole life. I use to sew my clothing and my daughter's to save money," says Nancy, who lives in Kresgeville with her beauty salon in her home."She'd sew an outfit for me and then a matching one for my Barbie," adds her only daughter, Chris.Nancy also loves to embroider. She remembers baby-sitting at age 14 for her cousin and they passed the time by embroidering together.Another of her passions is counted cross-stitch. Her favorite project is a beautiful picture titled "My Fair Lady," which will be featured at the quilt show, along with some of her other samples, like her trilogy of old world Santas. Nancy admits counted cross-stitch is a very time-consuming art form. Sometimes an area as small as an inch takes up to two hours to complete but she finds it relaxing.Always an admirer of quilts, her beautiful home is laced with quilts in almost every corner. It's only in the last few years that she has begun quilting herself, even though her mother, Eva Snyder was a quilter."Mom's quilts were simple patterns. She never bought material. She used only what she had or was given to her. But she was my inspiration. I began to challenge myself with more difficult patterns," says Nancy. Some of her mother's quilts will also be featured at the show.She does do some of her own handstitching, especially wall hangings and smaller quilted items."I enjoy it when I can sit on my sofa and quilt something on my lap," she says.As for quilting itself, she sees it as a creative outlet."And there's just something about pulling thread through a needle and material. I love it. I find needlework to be relaxing," she says.Nancy's daughter Chris graduated from Pleasant Valley High School. She had been trained to be a hairdresser at Monroe County Vo-tech School and that's all she ever wanted to do. She worked in her mom's shop until she opened her own in 1981 at her home in Palmerton.Besides both sharing a love of hairdressing, Chris inherited her mother's love of needlework.At the age of 16, she made her first quilt and it was appliqued."I've always embroidered," she says.She likes to make hand quilted wall hangings. She especially likes the ones she has of every month of the year."When you start, you get a bug for it. When I sit down at the sewing machine, I don't want to do anything else," she says.When asked why she likes to quilt, she says it's because they're so beautiful."Anytime I have a couple of minutes, I'll sew. I can't just sit and do nothing. I can't wait until after my shower when I can sit and sew," says Chris, who also enjoys riding bike, gardening, baking, spending time with her husband Richard. They have two children, Ryan and Nicole.Some of the items she plans to showcase at the quilt show are her favorite quilts, Pedal Pushers and Country Sampler.Nancy and Chris passed on their needlework genes to Chris's daughter, Nicki, a graduate of Palmerton Area High School.Ever since she was a small girl, Nicki has been a passionate jigsaw puzzler. Her mother says she could put a 1,000 piece puzzle together in just two days and there was always a puzzle going at all times on her little table. She is the same with her needlework."When I start something, I have to stay with it and finish it," says 20-year-old Nicki, a junior at East Stroudsburg University, majoring in health administration. She is currently working in St. Luke's Emergency Room in Allentown.She embroiders and does counted-cross stitch. She loved her Nan's Old World Santa trilogy so much, she searched online until she found the pattern and is in the process of completing her own.She became a quilter when her grandmother bought her a sewing machine."I didn't really want one but when I was 17 I went with my mom and Nan to a quilt shop. I saw these quilted Christmas stockings and I thought I'd like to make one. Nan asked me if I'd want a sewing machine and told her, 'Not really.' But she bought one for me anyway. It's a Janome. All three of us have the same one, just different colors. I had never touched one before. At first it was really frustrating. Now it's addicting," she says.That's how she feels about quilting."I like putting things together. It's the thinking about it, the cutting and finishing it. I love making blocks," she says.A few years ago, a girlfriend showed Chris a picture of a rag quilt she was going to do and Chris, Nancy and Nicki all loved it and wanted to make their own.Nancy's husband, Richard, had been diagnosed with leukemia and Nicki decided to do a 100-mile bike ride fundraiser for leukemia research in Lake Tahoe, Nevada last June in honor of her grandfather. In order to help her raise the funds she needed, the gals decided to make rag quilts for a Chinese auction/Basket Bingo event they held. They sold several besides what they made for the auction. They raised $8,000.This October, Nicki will be running in Nike's Women's Marathon fundraiser in San Francisco, California and when she's not quilting, she's training at the gym. The gals are busy making more rag quilts for Nicki's next fundraiser. They will have some samples of their rag quilts at the Stitches in Tyme Quilt Show on Sunday along with some other quilts and needlework that all three of the gals have made.Nancy has a framed picture of all three of them together sitting in a prominent space in her home. The words on the frame sums up the relationship of these three generations and their shared loved of needlework. It says ..."Children are born. Traditions are passed. The love continues on."Sounds like it should be stitched on fabric.