In a collaborative effort with the Lincoln County FCS Extension Agent, in September 2020 we offered our first virtual quilting class in conjunction with the National 'Sew a Jelly Roll Day' event. The sewing community is an easy way to make friends and seek advice from people that enjoy the same hobby as you, which can also fight depression.Sewing is a single focus task, which reduces the likelihood of negative thoughts and can help fight anxiety.

By September 2020 after months of shut down due to the pandemic, offering a virtual sewing experience seemed like a great therapeutic diversion for those that sew or quilt. We thought it would be successful with a few of our local clientele taking advantage of the opportunity, but we were surprisingly under-estimating the reach of a virtual class. We successfully conducted 2 virtual quilting classes in the fall of 2020 and made the plan to have quilting via Zoom every other month in 2021 with the off months being Come Sew with Us opportunities without a planned project. To date 349 have participated in the Zoom quilting classes from 7 different states; these are conducted on Saturday mornings into afternoon (5 classes total). 38 have participated in the Come Sew with Us events (3 sessions in 2021) which are held on the fourth Fridays.

This FCS Extension Agent along with the Lincoln County FCS Extension Agent discuss, plan, create samples of each class project before the class; information on supplies, fabric and possible color choices is sent via email 2 weeks before class. Creating power point with step-by-step pics and a qualtrics survey for each class is done before the class. The class projects are chosen/created to fit criteria such as, small enough to complete in Saturday class time (or almost finish), include a new technique/new method, reflect previous survey results from class members, respond to time of year (this affects fabric and color choices).

The following data is from the combined surveys of the 5 quilting classes with a 66% return: 

5% were new to Extension programming

88% reported learning a new technique

Holiday Table Topper most popular design with 25 participants responding to creating 85 toppers for personal use or gifts; at $35.00 apiece, this was great savings to sewists. 

32% of participants reported being new to quilting or have been involved for less than 5 years. 

One of the participants having recently opened her own retail quilt shop in Iowa, has offered our class projects as part of her class schedule in the shop. She is offering our classes as future Zoom watch parties in her shop for clientele.

Some comments from class participants when asked what they learned: 

-"I've never done a log cabin before"; "the non-traditional log cabin was a whole new idea to me"; "No idea you could make a log cabin side different width";

-"I'm just beginning to quilt, so everything is new!"

--"all about circular movement in a quilt"

-"working with triangles"; "setting on point"; "sewing with bias in the block"; "color combination ideas"

-"how to do Bargello"--this was expressed by 45% of the participants in the Table topper class

The types of emotional/physical references in comments included: settling down, calmness, slowing down, patience, happiness, feelings from sharing/seeing others, break from feelings of isolation/loneliness, excitement for quilting classes. 

The bi-monthly quilting classes will continue through 2021--re-evaluating at that time. A follow-up survey is needed for previous classes.