Milestone: Club donates quilt for Sister City

Published 2:04 pm Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club has donated a quilt to the Sequim City Council to be presented as a gift to Sister City Shiso, Japan. The quilt was presented to the Sequim City Council at its meeting on Oct. 13.

Front row is student ambassador Kyle Robarts. Back row, from left, are Merrie Joe Schroeder of the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club, city council member Laura Dubois, student Alison Cobb, student Emilee Taylor, Sequim Mayor Candace Pratt, students Hailey Kapetan, Linda Rogers, Thomas McCulloch and lead chaperone, Olympic Medical Center CEO Eric Lewis. (Not pictured is student Christina Lewis.)

The quilt and these seven students and three adults — chaperones Dubois, Lewis and Pratt — are traveling to Shiso, Japan, as ambassadors to represent Sequim in its Sister City Association’s 2014 Ambassadors’ exchange. They began their trip on Oct 20.

The wall quilt was designed and created by Sunbonnet Sue Club members Stephanie Swensson and Schroeder. The center block, titled “The Blue Hole,” was designed and created by Swensson.

Schroeder designed and created the area surrounding the center block and machine quilted the piece. In addition to Swensson and Schroeder’s contributions, club member Robin Leja donated fabric for the project.

In September, a delegation of 10 students and three chaperones visited Sequim from Shiso. The students experienced American life by staying with host families, attending classes at Sequim High School and visiting Sequim area attractions. The chaperones visited the Shiso City Friendship Garden at Carrie Blake Park, the Sequim Farmers Market, the Museum & Arts Center, Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent, local medical facilities and a retirement community.

The cities of Yamasaki, Hyogo Prefecture in Japan and Sequim signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Oct. 31, 1992. In 2004, Yamasaki merged with four other cities to form the present day city of Shiso.