Quilting for a cause

Drivers on N. Fletcher or E. Hillside avenues may have noticed a big white tent occupying the parking lot of the Unraveled Quilt Store on Aug. 8. Underneath it, they would find 32 women quilting for charity. The event under that tent: The 7th Annual Unraveled Quilt-a-Thon.

“It started after COVID when we could start getting together again,” recalled Lisa Stantz, owner of Unraveled Quilt Store, “I always liked the charm of having it in the parking lot under a tent.”

The event started as a way for quilters to get together in an outside setting due to the social distance restrictions during the Covid 19 pandemic. Now, over six years later the Quilt-a-thon has raised over $46,000 for charities in Owen County and beyond. This year’s Quilt-a-thon beneficiaries are two local animal shelters: Compass Rose Farm Sanctuary and the Sanctuary at Browning Farms. The Quilt-a-thon works like a walk-a-thon or a dance marathon. Participating quilters get sponsors from individuals or businesses that donate to the event’s chosen cause based on how many hours that the participant spends quilting.

“We start at 10 a.m. and go until 2 a.m.,” said Stantz, “We start with 32 people at 10 a.m. and we only have about five left at 2 a.m.”

She said that the 2 a.m. limit had to be set because otherwise the marathon would never end. The first Quilt-a-thon ended at noon the day after it started.

“The first year we started at 4 p.m. and I thought ‘Great,’ because people would be tired, but by the next day I had to say ‘Girls, I’m calling it. I don’t know how long they would have sewn if I had just let them go.’”

The event brings in quilting enthusiasts from around the county, and even around the country like Columbia, Maryland resident Annette Hannah who flew in just for the Quilt-A-Thon. Hannah discovered the Unraveled Quilt Store many years ago, when she was helping her son move to Indiana for a new job at Crane Naval Base. She remembers a frustrating car ride that led her to seek out some quilt-therapy.

“I was going to kill him, because he was driving me nuts,” Hannah recalled, “So I went looking for a local quilt store and this was the closest one.”

She kept coming back, she says, for the amazing quilting community that she found here in Spencer.

“Even though I’ve flown 600 miles, this is my local quilt store,” she said.

Dedication to quilting and to the local quilting community is something that everyone at the event shared. Spencer resident Amber Brooks-Wolfe didn’t let a foot injury stop her from quilting at the event. She replaced her normal foot pedal with a switch that she works with her hand instead.

“I was not going to miss it this year, even with a broken foot,” she said. “It’s a little harder because you don’t have both hands to feed the fabric but I’ve been doing it now for six weeks and I haven’t sewn my fingers yet.”

It was 10-year-old Lilly Brinson’s third Quilt-a-thon event. She learned to sew three years earlier at an Unraveled Future Quilters event.

“I just like sewing with other people,” she said.

At 10:30 that night while many others had gone home, Lilly was still working on her quilt along with her mother Stephanie Brinson.

The 2026 event raised over $7,000 for the two charities, something that Lisa Stantz is very proud of.

“I’ve lived in Owen County all my life. Doing this event is a way for me to give back to our community,” Stantz reflected. “Being able to bring people together for the greater good is a great feeling.”