A Most Amazing Quilt

 In the previous post, I mentioned that the appliqué blocks we're raffling off tomorrow are from a quilt in the museum's collection made by a woman named Almira Brown.

On Thursday, our speaker (and featured quilter) Ann Pfrender showed us many quilts in the museum's collection, including that show-stopper by Almira Brown.

It's the finest example of vintage workmanship I think I've ever had the opportunity to be a few inches from.  The appliqué and trapunto are exquisite, and the quilting is a remarkable 12-14 stitches per inch, at a minimum.

I encourage you to use your computer's zoom feature to see the details.

Our 2016 Appliqué Block Raffle

Every year 20 Pioneer Quilters each hand-appliqué a block for the block raffle held during our show.  The blocks are typically based on an appealing design from a vintage quilt.  Sometimes that quilt is in the museum's collection. Usually you can at least see a picture of the quilt that inspired the blocks.

You can scroll down and read a few April posts from previous years to see blocks from previous raffles.  Our hope is always that the winner will get the blocks put together and the finished quilt will be in one of our future shows.

That's the case for these blocks won 3 years ago.  



These basket blocks were won by Pioneer Quilter Denise's friend Janet in 2013, and Denise used her turn to have a quilt in the frame at Pioneer Quilters for us to quilt Janet's top. What a special friend--we each only get a turn to have the group quilt a top about every five years!  Janet put her finished quilt in this year's show--it's #120, and is displayed upstairs.

The 2016 blocks are based on a floral appliqué and trapunto quilt made by Almira Brown.  Here are a few as they started to come in.

The amazing quilt that was the inspiration for this year's blocks is in the museum's collection and is one of the quilts that Ann and Heather will be discussing on Thursday at their 1:00 presentation.  

We think that you'll love these happy, bright floral blocks, and hope that you buy many chances to win them.  As usual, they are $1.00 each, or six tickets for $5.00.  You can get your tickets from the friendly Pioneer Quilter who hands you the show catalog.  They're displayed behind her.  At that table, you can also put your name on a list if you think you might have a quilt ready to be displayed at next year's show.  While you're at that table, pick up a trio of 6" squares, our thank you gift to you for visiting our show.

If you don't win and/or prefer to make them yourself, the museum gift shop has a pattern (made from the quilt) for sale!  The patterns are displayed up at the counter, by the cash register.

Meet Our 2016 Featured Quilter

We are pleased to announce that our 2016 Featured Quilter is Ann Pfrender.  After careers in medicine in Michigan, Ann and her husband moved to Eugene in 1998 (lured by the charms of young grandsons) where she's been very active in the quilting community and Pioneer Quilters ever since.

Ann grew up with quilters in her family, but didn't take it up personally until midlife, a few years before concluding her career as a physician.  She also underwent training and certification as an AQS quilt appraiser, a good fit with her dual interests in quilting and antiques.  

Ann is currently also active in The Oregon Quilt Documentation Project, The Columbia-Willamette Quilt Study Group and creates many great items for our Boutique.

Ann will share some of her antique quilt expertise on Thursday at 1:00,  when she and Heather Kliever, Registrar and Curator of Education at the Lane County Historical Museum, will show and discuss some of the quilts in the museum's collection, focusing on these topics:

Talking from the Trunk

Museum quilts 1840-1890

Quilts from the Oregon Trail,

The Whitaker and Harlow families

The quilts Ann creates are always beautiful, unique and often come with a good story.  I hope you'll take time to look at those in her Featured Quilter display area of our show, and find time to chat with her.