Not everyone on Super Bowl Sunday sits in front of the TV watching the game. In fact, 14 area women spent the afternoon in front of sewing machines.

Michele’s Sales and Service selected Super Bowl Sunday to work on a service project making baby quilts for Blue Earth’s New Horizons Adoption Agency.

“My suppliers push a ‘Ladies Day Out,'” say Michele Hard, owner of Michele’s Sales and Service. “When Julie Willmert mentioned in early January she wanted to do a service project to benefit local people, the idea to combine a service project with a ‘fun day for women’ was put in motion.”

To promote the event, Hard ran advertisements and spoke to a quilt group. Basically, through word of mouth, ladies from age 14 to their 80s showed up at noon on Super Bowl Sunday to do some serious sewing. The ‘come and go’ event was scheduled to last until 7 p.m.

“Many of the ladies brought their own sewing machines and fabric scraps,” says Hard. If they didn’t, she let them use machines from the store. She also had plenty of supplies on hand from thread to fabric if anyone needed anything.

“Everyone who sews has scraps galore,” says Willmert of the sharing that occurred on this day.

For some of the ladies present, it was a learning day where the experienced sewers taught the novices the art of quilting.

The ladies creations were made from a two-and-one-half inch strip quilt pattern planned by Willmert. None of the 19 completed projects looks alike however, since each participant used different fabric combinations and colors for their top.

Amazingly, most of the quilt tops were finished that day.

Heartland Embroidery’s Lissia Laehn did the top stitching to finish the quilts so they could be presented to New Horizons Adoption Agency on April 3.

Marlys Ubben, Executive Director of New Horizons Adoption Agency, says she and her co-workers feel blessed to have the quilts.

The local agency placed 29 children in domestic adoption situations last year.

“We always try to send something with the children, such as a special blankie when they are adopted,” says Ubben.

“It is one special item that is theirs,” says Ubben of the donated quilts. “It will remind them of their story and journey in later years.”

The local adoption agency also sends quilts to orphanages in Guatemala, so there is never a surplus of quilts on hand here. Donations, such as the 19 quilts assembled on Super Bowl Sunday, are indeed a blessing.

Already an enthusiastic Hard and Willmert are wanting to do another ‘fun day.’ They are also considering good places where the helping hands of their quilters can donate with helping hearts another batch of quilts.

At any rate, the quilting team of 14 ladies were the real winners on Super Bowl Sunday.