Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 10/99) - With school in session and clubs and organizations gearing up for fall, Yellowknifer Linda Kallos has a suggestion for people wanting to occupy increasingly cool and dark evenings.

As an active quilt-maker she says one thing people can do to while away time as they release their creativity is to make quilts.

"It's a therapeutic way to express yourself creatively," she said.

"And it helps you deal with anything you're dealing with -- the hard times plus the good times. You sort of express your emotions through your fingers."

Kallos has been making quilts for about 10 years.

When she started with the quilting club it only had about 10 members. Now there are more than 100 quilters in Yellowknife, she said.

The group meets at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at the Aven Centre.

Kallos is also in a second quilting group that meets more regularly, called Falling To Pieces.

She said many people think quilters sit in rocking chairs, making the same block again and again, but in reality quilting has evolved and quilts can have different blocks or whatever the quilter wants.

"At one workshop I went to there was a woman who gave an incredible talk and she had a love of doing faces," Kallos said.

"I was entranced by this woman and was so touched that even though I was taking a course in landscape, I was desperate to do a face so the teacher said 'do your thing.'"

Kallos spends about 20 hours a week on her quilts in the upstairs loft of her Morrison Ave. home.

"I used to be a weaver several years ago and I used to stain glass, but with quilting there's a sentimental factor to it," she said.

"You can remember the dress you wore when you put a piece of the dress in the quilt. You can think of how you feel when you made it or you're thinking of the person you're going to give it to."

Though in Kallos' upstairs loft there are quilts piled on top of each other, she said she does not sell the quilts, but rather gives them to people she loves.

"When my kids see (the quilt I'm making) they might say, 'Oh, I love that Mum.' and I'll think 'Oh, I'll put their name in it and give it to them one day when they're older and married.'"