10/23/2026
**A Friendship Quiltโand a Connection to Clark Gardens ๐งต**
Among the quilts hanging in the gardens this weekend were two made by Evelyn Leatherman. Thanks to Wanda Lovelace, we get to share a little of the history stitched into them.
Around 1990, women from the Garner Extension Homemakers Club each made a quilt block bearing her name and gave the blocks to Evelyn. She pieced them together and quilted the entire quilt by hand, creating the Friendship Quilt displayed at this yearโs show.
The women lived in the Garner and Millsap communities, and this wasnโt their only quilting project together. They made several quilts over the years, including quilts raffled at the Parker County Extension Homemakers Bazaar. Other families may still have similar friendship quilts tucked away or spread across a bed, carrying some of these same names.
The Garner club began in 1931. Over the years, its name changed from the Home Demonstration Club to the Extension Homemakers Club and, later, the Family & Community Education Club. The club stopped meeting in 1999, but this quilt preserves a piece of its historyโand the names of the women who were part of it.
Evelyn also made the Sunflower Quilt shown here, using double-knit fabric. Alongside the quilts, weโre sharing a photo of club members Evelyn Leatherman, Wanda Lovelace, Betty Lionberger, Polly Pond, Chlodell Clary and Louise Nichols, followed by a portrait of Evelyn.
And thereโs one more detail that makes having her quilts here especially sweet: **from 1949 to 1952, Evelyn lived on the property where Clark Gardens is today.**
Decades later, two quilts she made spent the weekend hanging in the gardens on that same property.
Thank you, Wanda, for sharing these photographs and the stories behind them. ๐
