If your air conditioner is broken on a Wednesday between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., “the best place to be,” joked Eva Karpati, is at the National Council of Jewish Women Canada’s (NCJWC) office in North York, Toronto. For those two hours, while you may be cooling off, your heart will be warmed with community as you and a bevy of women, quilt, perhaps gossip, and hear at least one woman brag about a grandchild.
The Toronto Jewish Quilting Project first met 21 years ago on a blistering cold December night at Barbara Frum Library. Any season, it seems, is one fit for quilting when you’re surrounded by new and old friends creating for good. That evening, 25 women gathered to make quilts for those touched by cancer. The Angel Quilts, as they would go on to be called, have offered comfort to over 500 people.
Prior to this first meeting, Karpati, the TJQP’s founder, had, unfortunately, experienced her own cancer journey. Diagnosed November 2001, she went through a year of chemotherapy and radiation. At the end of her treatment, as a form of therapy, she started taking quilting lessons at Wellspring. Making tangible art proved to be a form of meditation. In addition to learning how to quilt, Karpati wanted to gift one to a young Jewish woman in her support group. At the time, there wasn’t a resource in Toronto that donated quilts to those affected by cancer, and so she had to request one from Ottawa.
Three years after that fateful December night, and many other days and nights when Karpati hauled mounds of fabrics in and out of her car, her initiative was adopted by the NCJWC Toronto chapter.
And when I met Karpati in that aired condition office on July 2, along with the other women in the group, the same fire that must have helped fuel those hauls, was effervescent. She bustled around the room we were in. You do not need to know how to sew, you do not need to be Jewish, nor do you need to be a survivor of cancer to attend, she told me. You just, I realized, have to want to be there. With one quilter remarking: “Everybody is from everywhere. Everyone has their own history. No one judges, or snips.”
As Karpati moved around the large room, where there were more than a dozen women gathered, she lit up when speaking about their work and the community she helped build. The women, in most cases, do not know who will be the one to find warmth in the fabric their hands have sewed. The process is by referral, someone who knows someone will request the quilt but the organization does not give the recipient the quilt directly. Instead, they’ll often give it to the person who initially contacted them. Though most are in the city, recipients can be of any faith or gender. It is simply for someone going through treatment.
It takes around two months to finish a quilt, and different quilts are being made at the same time. I asked the terrible question to one quilter on if she had a favourite quilt. To which she responded: “They’re all special. In the end they’re all beautiful.”
However, there are favourite stories.
Karpati’s is about the first quilt the TJQP made and donated. It was to her friend, and now fellow quilter, Susie.
In 2004, Susie got leukemia and was living in London, Ontario. She had known Karpati when they had worked at the JCC in Toronto as fitness instructors but had lost touch over the years. When Susie moved back to Toronto to recover at her sister’s, Susie shared with me, a knock came at the door and it was Karpati with a “beautiful quilt. I loved it.”
When Susie moved into her own place, she decided to hang up her quilt on the wall. “We want all our quilts to become,” Karpati remarked, “a memento of a journey that the recipient has gone on” and now, Susie’s quilt is “a piece of art.” It has been five years since Susie started quilting with the other women, and making pieces of art for folks who are in the same place she once was. “I still don’t know everybody’s names and I’m terrible at sewing,” but, Susie adds, “It’s nice to know I’m part of this too. After having gotten one myself, now I can give back.”
In addition to quilters offering their time, the TJQP has received donations from Fabricland and even from an acquaintance of longtime quilter Mary’s daughter’s Sunday school teacher’s husband, Bob.
Mary had a lovely Jewish friend, Sheila Fruitman, who she played bridge with. Fruitman would always talk about attending Karpati’s quilting sessions. One day, Mary asked if she could come with, and for the past 10 years she hasn’t stopped. Which is where Bob comes in. His wife, Janet, was a talented quilter and after she passed away, Bob offered them her materials. There was one container of beautiful quilting blocks that had been machine sewn. When Aliza, another quilter, saw these blocks she took them home and put them together to make a beautiful quilt top. “Whoever has the quilt” said Mary, “has something started by a woman who passed away. It’s a tribute to this person. Bob was so pleased to see this quilt that was in honour of his wife.”
In faith-based charitable organizations, it is assumed everyone prays to the same God, which I gather is why Mary, when I first approached her, told me she wasn’t Jewish. But isn’t it wonderful to see that within the Jewish community we still gather with people from different religions, and in some respects feel like family to one another. In fact, that’s how Mary describes it: “it’s like a family.” And family comes in all shapes, sizes, and practices.
From floral quilts, to a Wizard of Oz quilt, to a heart quilt, to a lantern quilt, to a jewel quilt, to the layers of blocks and tops that have been hand and machine-sewed, each stitch was made with purpose over tea and sweets and laughter, and likely tears. When I visited the NCJWC office that day, a mix-and-match quilt was being crafted. “It represents the group when we all come together. It’s not a set pattern.” But, I myself will add, that’s what makes it work.
Eva Karpati, Susie, Mary, and all the other women I spoke to that day made me feel instantly welcomed. If you have the opportunity to quilt your way through life, or just through two hours of a Wednesday of your life, with friends who feel like family in an air-conditioned room, giving the reprieve of comfort to those in need—well, The Toronto Jewish Quilting Project truly does sound like one of the best places you can be.
If your air conditioner is broken on a Wednesday between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., “the best place to be,” joked Eva Karpati, is at the National Council of Jewish Women Canada’s (NCJWC) office in North York, Toronto. For those two hours, while you may be cooling off, your heart will be warmed with community as you and a bevy of women, quilt, perhaps gossip, and hear at least one woman brag about a grandchild.
The Toronto Jewish Quilting Project first met 21 years ago on a blistering cold December night at Barbara Frum Library. Any season, it seems, is one fit for quilting when you’re surrounded by new and old friends creating for good. That evening, 25 women gathered to make quilts for those touched by cancer. The Angel Quilts, as they would go on to be called, have offered comfort to over 500 people.
Prior to this first meeting, Karpati, the TJQP’s founder, had, unfortunately, experienced her own cancer journey. Diagnosed November 2001, she went through a year of chemotherapy and radiation. At the end of her treatment, as a form of therapy, she started taking quilting lessons at Wellspring. Making tangible art proved to be a form of meditation. In addition to learning how to quilt, Karpati wanted to gift one to a young Jewish woman in her support group. At the time, there wasn’t a resource in Toronto that donated quilts to those affected by cancer, and so she had to request one from Ottawa.
Three years after that fateful December night, and many other days and nights when Karpati hauled mounds of fabrics in and out of her car, her initiative was adopted by the NCJWC Toronto chapter.
And when I met Karpati in that aired condition office on July 2, along with the other women in the group, the same fire that must have helped fuel those hauls, was effervescent. She bustled around the room we were in. You do not need to know how to sew, you do not need to be Jewish, nor do you need to be a survivor of cancer to attend, she told me. You just, I realized, have to want to be there. With one quilter remarking: “Everybody is from everywhere. Everyone has their own history. No one judges, or snips.”
As Karpati moved around the large room, where there were more than a dozen women gathered, she lit up when speaking about their work and the community she helped build. The women, in most cases, do not know who will be the one to find warmth in the fabric their hands have sewed. The process is by referral, someone who knows someone will request the quilt but the organization does not give the recipient the quilt directly. Instead, they’ll often give it to the person who initially contacted them. Though most are in the city, recipients can be of any faith or gender. It is simply for someone going through treatment.
It takes around two months to finish a quilt, and different quilts are being made at the same time. I asked the terrible question to one quilter on if she had a favourite quilt. To which she responded: “They’re all special. In the end they’re all beautiful.”
However, there are favourite stories.
Karpati’s is about the first quilt the TJQP made and donated. It was to her friend, and now fellow quilter, Susie.
In 2004, Susie got leukemia and was living in London, Ontario. She had known Karpati when they had worked at the JCC in Toronto as fitness instructors but had lost touch over the years. When Susie moved back to Toronto to recover at her sister’s, Susie shared with me, a knock came at the door and it was Karpati with a “beautiful quilt. I loved it.”
When Susie moved into her own place, she decided to hang up her quilt on the wall. “We want all our quilts to become,” Karpati remarked, “a memento of a journey that the recipient has gone on” and now, Susie’s quilt is “a piece of art.” It has been five years since Susie started quilting with the other women, and making pieces of art for folks who are in the same place she once was. “I still don’t know everybody’s names and I’m terrible at sewing,” but, Susie adds, “It’s nice to know I’m part of this too. After having gotten one myself, now I can give back.”
In addition to quilters offering their time, the TJQP has received donations from Fabricland and even from an acquaintance of longtime quilter Mary’s daughter’s Sunday school teacher’s husband, Bob.
Mary had a lovely Jewish friend, Sheila Fruitman, who she played bridge with. Fruitman would always talk about attending Karpati’s quilting sessions. One day, Mary asked if she could come with, and for the past 10 years she hasn’t stopped. Which is where Bob comes in. His wife, Janet, was a talented quilter and after she passed away, Bob offered them her materials. There was one container of beautiful quilting blocks that had been machine sewn. When Aliza, another quilter, saw these blocks she took them home and put them together to make a beautiful quilt top. “Whoever has the quilt” said Mary, “has something started by a woman who passed away. It’s a tribute to this person. Bob was so pleased to see this quilt that was in honour of his wife.”
In faith-based charitable organizations, it is assumed everyone prays to the same God, which I gather is why Mary, when I first approached her, told me she wasn’t Jewish. But isn’t it wonderful to see that within the Jewish community we still gather with people from different religions, and in some respects feel like family to one another. In fact, that’s how Mary describes it: “it’s like a family.” And family comes in all shapes, sizes, and practices.
From floral quilts, to a Wizard of Oz quilt, to a heart quilt, to a lantern quilt, to a jewel quilt, to the layers of blocks and tops that have been hand and machine-sewed, each stitch was made with purpose over tea and sweets and laughter, and likely tears. When I visited the NCJWC office that day, a mix-and-match quilt was being crafted. “It represents the group when we all come together. It’s not a set pattern.” But, I myself will add, that’s what makes it work.
Eva Karpati, Susie, Mary, and all the other women I spoke to that day made me feel instantly welcomed. If you have the opportunity to quilt your way through life, or just through two hours of a Wednesday of your life, with friends who feel like family in an air-conditioned room, giving the reprieve of comfort to those in need—well, The Toronto Jewish Quilting Project truly does sound like one of the best places you can be.