Two Quilts To Highlight Holiday Fair

SOUTHBURY — Thanks primarily to the nimble fingers of church member Kim Friend and the generosity of fellow church member Lois Byron, there will be not one but two hand-made quilts featured at the Holiday Fair of the United Church of Christ, Southbury, this year.

One, made from a vintage quilt top, will be sold to the highest bidder during a live auction, a highlight of the fair which will take place Saturday, November 17. The second is a modern quilt entitled “Lopsided Hearts” which will be the first prize in the raffle drawing that will conclude the Saturday fair.

The vintage quilt top was donated to the UCC holiday fair after Ms Byron found it in her mother’s attic.  Ms Friend thinks it is a variation of a postage-stamp quilt, so named because it is composed of hundreds — actually over 1,000 — tiny two-inch squares, all of them sewn together entirely by hand. The squares are clustered into twenty blocks of muted colors bordered in white, giving the quilt the overall appearance of flower gardens enclosed in white picket fences.

Ms Byron additionally believes the quilt top was begun by her father’s two maiden aunts, Minnie and Alice, born in 1868 and 1869 respectively, and for this reason she has named it “The Two Sisters Quilt.” Ms Byron and Ms Friend took the top to various quilt experts who, judging by the fabrics, estimate that the quilt was probably constructed in the 1930s, give or take a few years.  In donating what was essentially a family heirloom, Ms Byron said she knew she would never be able to complete it herself and wanted it to be finished and then owned by someone who would really appreciate and enjoy it.

“Besides,” she added, “I already have several quilts I really love, including one I won at the church raffle eleven years ago.”

Ms Byron won the quilt that was raffled off at the 1996 UCC holiday fair, and her Two Sisters Quilt was completed by Ms Friend, the person who made the Lopsided Hearts quilt.

“The Two Sisters Quilt” is a tied quilt because Lois Byron knows her great aunts made tied quilts. Any additional fabric used on the top – for the border for instance — also had to come from the same era that produced the fabrics in the original piece. The back and the filler, however, are from current materials.

The quilt will be a highlight at the live auction that will begin at 2 pm the day of the holiday fair. Bidding will begin at a minimum of $200.

“Lopsided Hearts” looks like its name. The multi-colored quilt features over a dozen fabric hearts, each one just a tiny bit skewed, giving the quilt a whimsical, light-hearted appearance. The quilt itself is anything but skewed; it measures a perfectly square-cornered, straight-edged 50 by 70 inches.

The hearts are surrounded by tiny, intensely multi-colored squares and stripes in an overall pattern that Ms Friend says is “a variation on the traditional log cabin quilt pattern.”  The finished product should fit in with anyone’s color scheme, featuring, as it does, virtually every color of the rainbow in a sprawling spectrum of  prints, plaids, stripes, paisleys – a plethora of dainty patterns.  They are sewn together with a variety of complex, decorative machine stitchings.

“Lopsided Hearts” is a thoroughly modern quilt, made with current fabrics and stitched entirely by machine both in the construction and in the quilting. Ms Friend began planning it about eight months ago, then put in six months of cutting and piecing, sewing and quilting, “on and off” for about six months. The final result is a complex and pleasing whole that has been valued at approximately $1,000. Raffle tickets are $2 each and are available at the church office from 9 am to noon during the week and will also be sold the day of the church fair.

The holiday fair, on the church property at 283 Main Street North, Southbury, will take place on Saturday, November 17, from 9:30 am until 3 pm. The live auction will begin at 2 pm, and the drawing for the raffle prizes will be at 3.

First prize is “Lopsided Hearts,” second prize is an iPod Nano with four gigabytes of storage and a two-inch color display; third prize is dinner for two, including a bottle of wine, at The Mayflower Inn in Washington, and fourth prize is a $75 gift certificate from Southbury Food Center.

For additional information contact Jennifer Peterson, chairman of the UCC holiday fair, at 262-6460 or the church office at 264-8807.