| Raffle Quilt |
This year's Raffle Quilt is one of the most identifiable quilt patterns: Grandmother's Flower Garden. The quilt top was hand-pieced by local quilter Bernice Wolbert, and then was quilted by the Friends of Milwaukie Center quilting group.
Bernice Wolbert, age 90, has been active in quilting groups for many, many years. She taught quilting to a group in Carver, then when the Carver group joined the Concord Church group, she taught the finer points of quilting to the combined group. Those groups have now joined the Friends of Milwaukie Center Quilters, and they quilt on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the Milwaukie Center .
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Bernice doesn't remember what year she hand-pieced the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, but she did make a comment about what nice work she could do "when I was younger".
The outer rings of most of the flowers in the quilt are "fussy cut" to take advantage of the designs in the various fabrics.
Mrs. Wolbert grew up in "John Day Country", the daughter of a carpenter "who could do anything" and a homemaker. As a young child, she learned her shapes by using her finger to trace around the blocks in the family quilts. The first quilt she made, a four-patch, was done at the age of nine. Her mother showed her how to use the sewing machine, gave her a bag of scraps, and Bernice took it from there.
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Because her eyesight isn't what it was, Bernice has difficulty making the small quilting stitches she prefers; she now limits her quilting to piecing and tieing quilts for Aids babies.
Bernice was happy to pass on a bit of Life's Advice for all of us. Her father told her, and she continues to live by his words: "Keeping going is what keeps you going."
The photo above is of Bernice and the Grandmother's Flower Garden Raffle Quilt. The photo to the left is of Bernice working on one of her Aids Baby quilts.
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To the right is a photo of Bill, a quilter with the Friends of Milwaukie Center Quilters, working on the Raffle Quilt.
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To the left is a photo of some of the Friends of Milwaukie Center Quilters working on the Raffle Quilt.
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Here are two examples of the "fussy-cut" blocks that Bernice did for this quilt. |
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