On a mid-January morning last week, sunlight shining through stained glass windows at Gethsemane Lutheran Church illuminated rows of patchwork quilts draping the church’s wooden pews.  

The quilts have become an annual adornment in Gethsemane’s sanctuary for the past 17 years as “The Knotty Ladies” quilt group prepares to send off its stash of quilts assembled during the year to places in need around the world. 

After blessing the quilts during the church’s Jan. 25 service, The Knotty Ladies will give 39 quilts, as well as nine fabric kits and more than 20 drawstring school bags filled with supplies, to Lutheran World Relief to distribute to global ministry partners.   

“We will take these by car over to Jacksonville for the in-gathering of the churches in North Florida,” said The Knotty Ladies’ founder, Betty Roode. “There, a semi-truck will come through Miami and take them up north to Lutheran World Relief’s warehouse.” 

Roode, 86, is a member of Gethsemane Lutheran Church and founded The Knotty Ladies in 2009. She aims to use her decades of quilting experience to reach people in need locally and internationally. 

Roode said when the group began, a few volunteers were making around 20 quilts a year out of any fabric they could find: curtains, tablecloths, sheets, even old clothes.  

Today, around 10 quilters from the church and the larger Gainesville area have doubled the group’s quilt production and added extra care kits, like the school bags, using fabric, thread and batting donated by the community. 

“The Knotty Ladies” name is a recent alteration. 

“We were thinking that we needed a name other than ‘the quilt group,’ that’s so dull,” Roode laughed. “Since we tie knots, we’re ‘knotty ladies.’” 

By tying knots, Roode means the way the quilts are assembled.  

First, each group member sews together squares of fabric into quilt tops at home. Whether they have time to spare in retirement or something good to watch on TV can make the difference between one top per day or one per week.  

Then, The Knotty Ladies gather around a table in a room at Gethsemane on the third Tuesday of every month to layer the quilt tops with the batting filling and fabric backing.  

Instead of intricate and time-consuming quilting patterns holding the layers together, the members tie threads every five inches around the quilt. One of the members’ husbands made custom table raisers so the hours of quilting fare easier on the ladies’ backs. 

A few hours later, three to four quilts are tied and given to Roode, who binds the edges with a strip of fabric to finish. The Knotty Ladies said each quilting session always turns into a time of fellowship. 

“We get together and chat, but we do quilts also,” said quilter Jennifer Boe. “It’s like we happen to turn out a few quilts while we’re chatting.” 

In 2025, The Knotty Ladies’ quilts and kits contributed to over 803,000 sent to 15 countries, according to Lutheran World Relief’s 2025 Quilt and Kit Distribution Map. 

Mali received one of the largest quilt donations, with nearly 52,000, where Roode also said her church’s fabric kits go to a school that teaches people how to sew. Ukraine received 8,200 quilts and more than 29,000 school kits were sent to Honduras.  

Roode said last year was also the first year quilts and kits were distributed around the U.S. She said the organization readied quilts to be handed out before Hurricane Milton and after California’s Palisades Fire. 

Although The Knotty Ladies never know exactly whose hands their handmade items will reach, the church will pray during the upcoming blessing that God will send them to exactly the right people and places they need to be. 

“[The pastor] blesses them to the use of whoever receives them,” said quilter Robin Walker.