THE MEN WHO MAKE AMENDS ONE QUILT AT A TIME
Fred Brown was 25 years into a 15-years-to-life prison sentence when he discovered that he enjoyed cutting out fabric squares of princesses and Care Bears and sewing them into quilts.
“When I was a kid [in Chicago], my mom sewed drapes, but I never thought of sewing as something I’d want to do myself,” said Brown, 66, an inmate at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Mo.
As he started quilting in the correctional center’s sewing room, he was struck by a newfound respect for the craft.
“I learned quickly that women who have sewn all their lives are mathematical geniuses,” he said. “It takes a lot of math to calculate your seam allowances. And the angles and circles. There’s a lot that goes into it.”
Brown, who is serving time for armed kidnapping and rape, said he began sewing four years ago when he heard about a small group of inmates who gathered daily in South Central’s sewing room to volunteer to make quilts for charitable organizations and children in foster homes.
“When I learned that I could help bring a smile to a child’s face, I was all in,” he said. “Right now, I’m working on a puppy quilt that will go to a 13-year-old boy. I don’t know anything about him, but I have a feeling he’s going to love this quilt.”
Brown’s latest creation is among more than 2,000 quilts that have been made by inmates from fabric donated to the prison in the last decade, said Joe Satterfield, a prison case manager at South Central who oversees the program...
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