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published courtesy of the Black Hills Pioneer

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Quilters gather at Terry Peak

BY DONNA SMITH, Black Hills Pioneer

September 10, 2003

LEAD -- For the past eight years, Betty Dahlin and her daughter Valerie Begeman have planned and facilitated a retreat for quilters called "The Great Quilt Escape."
Since Monday, the quilters have filled the Terry Peak ski lodge with color, laughter and the buzz of sewing machines as they try out newly acquired skills.

Quilting is a popular hobby for some, a time-honored art form for others and a business enterprise for many people who teach quilting skills and sell patterns and fabric to quilters.

Retreat attendees reflect a wide range of devotion to quilting.

Shirley Swenson of Coon Rapids, Minn., said she has been quilting for 12 years. "I'm addicted," she said. "I like to see the end result and the pretty fabrics."

Marilyn Looyenga of Rapid City has been quilting for 29 years. She loves the people she has met and finds it fulfilling to create a quilt. "I like the feeling of creating with fabric. You get a piece of fabric, you cut it up and then sew it back together. It's good therapy," she said as she designed a new pattern for her next quilt.

Like many other quilters, Looyenga has made quilts for her children and grandchildren,

This year's quilting retreat is being held in the Terry Peak ski lodge due to space considerations. "We started out at Rimrock but we've outgrown every place where we've held this," Dahlin said.

For three days, the quilters meet at the lodge for learning sessions. Then they return to cabins and motel rooms on Terry Peak as well as motels in Lead for evening relaxation and fun.

"They come from all over the place... Oklahoma City, Wisconsin and Minnesota as well as from right here in South Dakota," Dahlin said of the more than 70 participants in this year's retreat.

"I find it relaxing, and I love to play with color. I come every year to the retreat. I just love being together," said Cheryl Householder of Rapid City.

In five separate areas of the lodge, quilters sit at sewing machines and circle around instructors as they learn new patterns and quilting techniques. Irons are set up in several locations and even at the bar where skiers normally step up for a drink, four quilters were huddled to discuss a pattern and plan who would take on which part of the work.

Teacher Ann Wanke of suburban Milwaukee is teaching at the retreat for the third time and has been quilting since 1980. "I love it. I was a home economics teacher but now I own my own quilt shop," Wanke said as she described the "summer wedding" quilting pattern.