Carol Jarvis said her first response that day was, “Oh, no, absolutely not.”
“My husband and I own a nursery, and we had downsized,” she said. “I told him I was retiring. But I needed something to do, so one day I said that out loud to one of our customers from Mississippi.”
That customer suggested she quilt. And that’s when Jarvis said, “Oh, no.”
“I told her my mom quilted, and I don’t want anything to do with it,” Jarvis said. “And she said, ‘Oh, no, I mean rag quilts! We make them at our church.’”
A package and ‘encouraging note’
The customer said they were simple to make, and she started describing the process to Jarvis — you cut fabric in squares, sew them together with diagonal seams on a sewing machine and then bind them together in rows.
“Three days later I get a package in the mail with instructions, a sample and an encouraging note,” Jarvis said.
So she tried it, and she “kind of got the bug.”
Her first quilt was for a young woman in the church who was fighting cancer. She made another quilt here and there for others who were going through something.
And then in 2013, Susan Digman joined Jarvis’ church, First Baptist Semmes, and one day Digman overheard someone asking Jarvis if her church had a quilting ministry.
“She said, ‘We don’t do prayer quilts; nobody is interested in making them,’” Digman said. “And I said, ‘Well, I am.’”
Digman’s husband had died that year, and she had joined a beginner’s quilting program at the local senior center.
The two got their heads together and asked their pastor to make an announcement one Sunday for people to come talk to them if they were interested in starting a prayer quilt ministry.
Five women came. Today, they have more than 20 who come to quilt every first and third Monday afternoon.
“Not everybody sews, but we all have jobs to do,” Digman said. “Some can iron, some can cut fabric, some can design the quilts.”
They also have a devotional when they meet, as well as coffee and desserts.
‘God had a plan’
“God has blessed us,” Digman said. “So many people have donated flannel and cotton fabric, sewing machines, irons and ironing boards to help us, we now have two rooms full of supplies at the church.”
They’ve made quilts for first responders, for expectant mothers at the Women’s Resource Center, for Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries and many people who are facing serious illnesses.
“It just warms our heart that we get to be God’s hands and feet,” Digman said.
Jarvis agreed. “We can take no credit, but I do believe it is a good ministry — it touches so many people.”
She said she believed the day that customer showed up and told her about rag quilts, “God had a plan.”
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