Dava Carrell ? a Winfield quilter and charter member of the Walnut Valley Quilters Guild ? will be guest speaker for the guild’s monthly meeting. Visitors are invited to attend.
Two sessions are set for 1 p.m and 7 p.m. March 10 at the First United Methodist Church, 2448 Edgemont, in Arkansas City. Carrell will present a program on friendship quilts and scrapbag quilts and will share stories about the people involved in making them.
Dava Carrell lives in Winfield with her cat, Zip. She has four children and 17 grandchildren. Carrell began quilting in 1976 after having been a custom seamstress prior to that. Her beginning as a quilter came when she took a class taught by Dot Brinkman, a fellow WVQG member, and Suzanne Brown.
In 1981 Carrell became one of 53 quilters in the United States to receive qualification at that time as a National Quilting Association Certified Teacher.
To become certified, she first had to become an experienced teacher. She then had to write out in detail everything she teaches in her beginning quilt classes.
She then took her teaching aids and actually taught the National Quilting Association board members how to hand quilt. After instructing them, answering many of their questions, and showing them some of her original quilting work, she was awarded the certification.
Carrell currently also belongs to MOKA (Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas & Arkansas Quilt Study Group), National Quilting Association, National Quilting Association of Certified Teachers, Kansas Quilters Organization, Prairie Quilt Guild, Country Rose Quilt Guild, and Pioneer Area Quilter’s Guild.
She had been a judge at the Kansas State Fair on 5 separate occasions and has lectured for County Extension groups in Kansas, guilds in Canada, and for colleges, guilds and state quilt organizations in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
Carrell will offer an all day workshop Saturday in Winfield. Guild members in the workshop will create a quilt that Carrell has named Charity Quilt–a scrappy quilt which she designed. When she teaches, Carrell tries to “instill in her students a deeper appreciation of the art of quilting and a true love for quilt-making”.
She has taught extensively for the last 30 years in county extension groups in Kansas and quilts shops as well as in quilt guilds, high schools, colleges, and state quilt organizations in Kansas and the surrounding states as well as Canada.
For more information, contact 221-3602.