Quilt groups plan Orono show Displays part of bicentennial

ORONO – The sight of beautiful cotton cloth is almost as much a herald of spring as the nodding of colorful tulips, jonquils and robins’ red breasts. Those who love patching, piecing and applique won’t want to miss the Orono Bicentennial Quilt Show 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday, April 28, and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, April 29, in the sanctuary at the Church of Universal Fellowship, 82 Main St.

New and antique quilts will be on display. Admission is by donation and $3 is suggested. The Orono Quilters and the Bear Paws Quilters are sponsoring the show.

Ellen Farrell of Hampden and Jean Campbell of Clifton, both members of Bear Paws Quilters, will be featured Friday in the church’s Fellowship Hall.

Farrell, 79, has been quilting for 20 years and estimates she has made nearly 100 quilts. She makes mostly scrap quilts.

“When you make a scrap quilt,” she said, “you don’t know beforehand what it will look like. Scrap quilts are my favorite.” Farrell, who grew up in The County, remembers being a little girl and helping her mother make scrap quilts from feed sacks. Quilting, she said, “is all I want to do.”

Campbell, 72, who lived part of her life in Alaska, does many applique quilts. “I learned to quilt when I was 9 or 10 from my grandmother,” she said. Campbell is the designer of the Eskimo Children quilt pattern. Information on how to get that pattern will be available at the quilt show, she said. She finds quilting fun and relaxing.

Pat Cody, a member of Orono Quilters, will be featured Saturday. She will display a hand-appliqued leaf quilt and do a hand quilting demonstration. She began quilting in the early 1980s.

“It was a snowy winter in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and I had a 2-year-old child. I watched Diane Smith’s quilting show on public television,” she said, describing how she became interested in quilting. She estimates that she has made at least 100 machine-pieced and hand-appliqued quilts.

“My pleasure is in the fabric, how the colors look together,” Cody said. Once two pieces from her stash fell to the floor by accident and they looked so good together she said she just had to make a wall hanging from them. Cats are often a theme in her work.

The quilts of her making that she likes best, she said, are “always the ones I’m currently working on.” She also loves scrap quilting because it allows her to play with color until she finds combinations that “sing.”

She teaches quilting in the Orono Adult Education program. She has done quilting demonstrations at the University of Maine’s Page Home and Farm Museum and the National Folk Festival.

The Orono Quilters will raffle a quilt done in the Twisted Sister pattern to benefit the Orono Senior Center. The Bear Paws Quilters will raffle a scrap quilt, which has an applique border, to benefit Spruce Run.

Other highlights of the quilt show include a quilting frame set up with a quilt top where attendees may do some stitching; a raffle of several quilt-related items; Merlene Sanborn and the Project Linus display; vendors Sandy’s Hideaway Quilts, Stillwater; Country Farm Fabrics, Caribou; Fabric Garden, Skowhegan; and Viking Sewing Machine dealership, JoAnn Fabrics, Bangor; and crafts, used books and magazines for sale.

Chili, sandwiches and sweets will be available at the food bar.

Ardeana Hamlin is the author of the By Hand column which runs Tuesdays in the Bangor Daily News.