Quilts to the hilt

What started as a way to stay active turned into an excess, then a charitable endeavor providing warm blankets. Patsy Mohr of Newport Beach started making quilts recently as a way of keeping her 94-year-old mother busy. Before long, they had produced more quilts than Patsy could store, so they decided to give them to people in need.

When Mohr’s mother Clara Frazier moved to Southern California two years ago, Mohr noticed that she wasn’t as active as she used to be. To help, Mohr came up with the idea of sewing quilts using friends’ left-over fabrics.

“You have a project and you have leftover materials, so I take them and make them into something,” said Mohr, 71.

The quilts started piling up, so Mohr began giving them away.

“I gave them to my cleaning ladies; one had two boys and was expecting a third one. The boys across the street got some as gifts, and these I’m saving for my grandchildren,” she said, gesturing to a stack of quilts on a couch.

Still with more quilts than friends and family members to give them to, Mohr was referred by a friend to the Orange County Amazing Grace Ministries, a Santa Ana-based charity that is giving blankets to seniors and veterans for Christmas.

The quilts were a welcome addition to a pile of blankets Amazing Grace project members had collected and made, said Judy Kane, project organizer.

“We have been blessed to have her help,” Kane said. “I wish there were dozens of Patsys so we could have hundreds of blankets because we don’t have enough.”

Mohr said she had hundreds of quilt squares lying around, but since her mother couldn’t put them together on her own, Mohr has to arrange them in a pattern before she lets her mother do the rest.

She said she doesn’t use left-over pieces of cloth anymore, partly because she wants to “add more color” to the quilts and partly because she and all her friends have run out of leftovers.

To donate quilts or blankets to Orange County Amazing Grace Ministries, call (714) 675-8986. 20051130iqqt5tknWENDI KAMINSKI / DAILY PILOT(LA)Patsy Mohr of Newport Beach makes blankets with her 95 year-old mother. When the blankets are finished, many are donated to the Orange County Amazing Grace Ministries, who in turn distributes them to people who need them.