'We're still a novelty': What it's like being 1 of 2 men in a 300-person quilting group

Some retirees take up golf or gardening. Lee Foster took up quilting, and now has dozens of colourful, intricate quilts to show for it.

The 66-year-old Winnipegger is one of only two men in the Manitoba Prairie Quilters group, which has close to 300 membersbut he wants more men to join.

"We're still a novelty, very much a novelty," he says.

Foster has been quilting for about six years, picking up the hobby from his wife and her friends.

"One day my wife's friend said, 'You know, I'm just taking a course on paper pieces,'" he said. Paper piecing is a quilting technique in which patches are sewn directly onto a template, and which can allow for detailed and precise stitching.

"And she says, 'I know you're a perfectionist, I know you're anal.I think this technique, you'd really, really like this,'" Foster recalls.

"So I said, 'Well, why don't you come over and show me?' So she did."

After that lesson, Foster made his first quilt: a Christmas-themed red and green wall hanging. That led to him making a farming-themed quilt for his grandsons.

"And that turned out really well. So I thought, wow, I think I can do this. So I kind of got hooked right after that."

Foster says he just likes the satisfaction of creating something "that's a piece of art, really." Heusually only quilts during the winter, to pass the time while it's too cold to go outside and do much else.

"I'm single-minded in my approach to things, so I would get up at 7 in the morning and I would quilt till 10 or 11 at night, and I forget to eat," he said, joking that he uses quilting as a weight loss program.

He says people are still sometimes a bit surprised to learn he quilts.

"For a while I was a little bit leery to tell people that I quilt, but not anymore," he said.

"I'm kind of proud of myself, and so I'm willing to talk about it."

About three years ago, Foster decided he wanted to show off some of his quilts, so he sent them with his wife to her quilting group, the Manitoba Prairie Quilters.

"She said, 'But you know I shouldn't be showing these quilts. You should be. They're your quilts.' And so in order to do that, you have become a member," he said.

"So I became a member so I could show off my quilts."

This past year, he went to his first quilting retreat to learn new techniques.

"You just sort to take a deep breath and walk into this room full of women," he said.

Foster says he thinks there are more men out there quilting the day awaythey just do it alone.

"I think that's why we don't see them, is they're lone quilters," he said.

"I quilt by myself in the living room here, my wife goes off to quilting retreats, some quilting meetings and I'm just as happy to stay home."