QUILT INDEX RECORD

2-33-8

Where are the records for this quilt housed?

Signature Quilt Pilot Project

Who documented this quilt?

Signature Quilt Project Public Submission

This is a:

Finished quilt

Quilt's title:

Enchanted Quilters Friendship Quilt

Names for quilt's pattern in common use:

hearts and more hearts

How wide is the quilt?

51 inches or 117 centimeters

How long is the quilt?

62.5 inches or 146 centimeters

What color is the quilt?

Maroon; Pink; Red; White

Type of inscription:

Date; Initials; Message; Multiple Names

What is inscribed on the quilt?

Row 1 (a) JoAnn Graham, (b) For Wini with Love 3-09-99 Ann Dawson (c) Audrey Swanson (d) Louise Eirich - Love (e) Ernestine Moffitt Row 2: (a) Mary Schoenman (b) Phyllis Cochran (c) EWS (Edith Schwendeman) (d) Frances Currier (e) Vivian Burt Row 3: (a) Wini, I love you to pieces. Thanks for being SEW special-Peggy Schuld (b) Love you Wini. You are a good neighbor, you're a good friend. Carol Wytyshyn 1999 (c) Cats "of course" by Betty Bliven (d) Marge Gradl (e) Nancy Givens Row 4: (a) Wini loves quilts. We love Wini. Norma E. Peal (b) Sherry Fopma (c) Mary Harris (d) Henriette DeFriel 1999 (e) Barbara Jennings Row 5: (a) Best wishes to our own Lopez Quilting Guru - Candy Reiter Midkiff (b) Barbara Sherwood - Lopez Island 1999 (c) Love and hugs to you dear Wini from Colleen (d) Darleen Demetrick 1999 (e) Bev McLeod Row 6: (a) Alyse Ortega (b) To Wini our Queen - Sarah Kaufman (c) I Love and miss you - Dawn Lease (d) In Friendship and love - Becky Huffington (e) You're in my heart-1999-Sherry Boone

What is the date inscribed on the quilt?

3-09-1999

Method used to make the inscription:

Ink

Location of inscription:

multiple locations

Time period:

2000-2025

Date estimated by an antique dealer, quilt historian or appraiser:

March 03, 1999

Describe the quilt's layout:

Block pattern

Fiber types used to make the quilt top:

Cotton

Fabric styles used in the quilt top:

Print

Describe the fibers or fabrics in the quilt top:

lace

Piecing techniques used to make the quilt top:

Machine Piecing

Applique techniques used to make the quilt top:

Blanket, buttonhole, or other decorative applique stitch; Hand Applique

Embellishment techniques used to make the quilt top:

Attachments (beading, charms, buttons, etc); Other embellishment technique

Features or notes about the quilt's appearance, materials, or construction:

Five blocks have some lace; two have some form of ribbon or rickrack; 3 have buttons; one has a small stuffed heart to add a 3-demensional quality to the block.

Quilt top made by:

Enchanted Quilters of Lopez Island

Other people who worked on this quilt:

Bliven, Betty; Boone, Sherry; Burt, Vivian; Cochran, Phyllis; Currier, Frances; Dawson, Ann; DeFriel, Henriette; Demetrick, Darleen; Eirich, Louise; Fopma, Sherry; Givens, Nancy; Gradl, Marge; Graham, JoAnn; Harris, Mary; Huffington, Becky; Jennings, Barbara; Kaufman, Sarah; Lease, Dawn; McLeod, Bev; Midkiff, Candy Reiter; Moffitt, Ernestine; Ortega, Alyse; Peal, Norma E.; Schoenman, Mary; Schuld, Peggy; Schwendeman, Edith; Sherwood, Barbara; Swanson, Audrey; Thomas, Colleen; Wytyshyn, Carol

Where the quilt was made, city:

Lopez Island

Where the quilt was made, county:

San Juan County

Where the quilt was made, country:

United States

Describe anything about the history of the quilt that wasn't already recorded in a previous field:

This is one of five Friendship Signature quilts made for my mother-in-law that I inherited in August 1999 when she passed away. Wini was born in Yakima, WA and grew up in Seattle.

Why was the quilt made?

Autograph or friendship; Gift or presentation

Describe the source of the pattern:

Original to maker

Describe anything about the design of the quilt that wasn't already recorded in a previous field:

I am in the process of gathering data on each of the women who made a block for this quilt now that I live on Lopez Island myself. However, several who made blocks have now passed on themselves. Others are still active in the Enchanted Quilters Guild that Winii helped found here on Lopez.

Related items such as diaries, obituaries, wills, household inventories, or pictures of the quiltmaker:

Photos and documentation of all her quilts.

Quilt owner's name:

Karen Biedler Alexander

Quilt owner's city:

Lopez Island

Quilt owner's country:

United States

Description of quilt:

My mother-in-law, Winifred (Wini) Margaret [Wataers] Alexander, was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in late February 1999. The members of Enchanted Quilters of Lopez Island, Washington, immediately made a friendship quilt for her, which lay at the foot of her bed throughout most of her final 6 months of life, and lovingly covered her the night she passed on, August 23, 1999.

Essay:

Another Quilter Passes On – written September 1999 My mother-in-law, Winifred (Wini) Margaret [Waters] Alexander from Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state, died as a result of ovarian cancer 23 August 1999. I was fortunate to have a wonderful relationship with my MIL for 31 years. Wini was well known in quilting circles in the islands due to her contributions to the founding of an island quilt group (Enchanted Quilters named after a shop - The Enchanted Needle - on Lopez Island). In addition she started a newsletter (The Connecting Thread) for the Northwest Quilting Connection, and edited it for 12 years. She was also very active in the San Diego Stitchery Guild from 1977-1981 during the few years my in-laws experimented with retirement in that area before moving back to the Pacific Northwest. She served as a newsletter editor there also. Wini's mother died of TB when she was 6 years old. Her father moved she and her younger sister around and went thru endless care-givers. Wini went thru 16 schools in 8 years. I didn't learn this until I started doing "grandparent interviews" for the family records I wanted to passs to my own children some day. Wini graduated from University of Washington with a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics in 1940 and, for a short time before and after her marriage in 1942, worked for the Prudence Penny Department of the Seattle Post Intelligence, answering phones and helping with the mail. Later, when her three children were well established in school, she began teaching Home Economics. Wherever she lived, she eventually offered classes to the public, sometimes in clothing construction, sometimes in quilting, sometimes in other forms of the needlearts. She left her large quilt/sewing studio and everything in it to me when she passed away. I brought home two satchels (yes, she made them) full of files, photo albums, and her Quilt Journal in which she began recording her work (retroactively) in 1985 at my encouragement (160 quilts and wall hangings were recorded in that little journal). My favorite photo to this day is the one I took of my three children Christmas Day Eve 1977. They are each tucked into their camper cot in the living, covered by life-size full-body portrait quilts she had just given them that morning, and their faces are wreathed in huge grins. On the quilt they are each clothed in remnants of fabric matching the very clothes she had made for them to wear. How they loved their grandma's quilts. Wini kept track of all her many quilting activities in the Quilt Engagement Calendar series of date books over the years, which I will use in my research in documenting her life. This is a woman who saved every shred of correspondence my husband and I ever sent her in our 31 years of marriage. I saved hers as well for we both shared our quilting activities over the years via letters and later by e-mail. At age 77 Wini bought herself a computer and went on-line shortly thereafter. She loved the ease of email for she had been a voracious correspondent with quilters around the world since the late 1970s, and email made it easier to keep up with that voluminous task. She participated in several block exchanges around the world, as well as a couple of round-robin quilts. She organized the making of raffle quilts that raised thousands of dollars for the Senior Center on Lopez during her many years living in the islands. The Quilters and hospice of Lopez Island took such wonderful care of her from March through her death August 23, 1999, one week after her 82nd birthday. At her memorial service we hung her quilts and quilted clothing and had a good old-fashioned pot-luck, with her quilt friends providing all the food. My husband and I had the good fortune to be by her side the last week of her life, and were holding her hands and singing her favorite Gershwin and Cole Porter songs to her that last hour as she slipped over. Wini was working on a doll quilt-size hexagon quilt from her bed those last few months. It was her rendition of tranquil Lake Hummel on Lopez Island, the only lake on the island. She finally handed it to me the day before her 82nd birthday (August 16) and said, "You finish the last row. I don't think I can do anymore." And indeed, it was her last stitch. She dieid a week later. I have been present at 11 home births in my life, but this was my first time to be present at death. What struck me most of all, besides my own very personal sense of loss, was what a life-time of experience and wealth of information disappears from our lives every time someone passes on. If we don't interview them and record their stories while they are with us, all of that is gone forever. As I was back in her studio documenting 17 of her wall hangings for a memorial show a few weeks after she died, I realized that in spite of all the documentation she and I both had preserved, there were still questions that needed answering. But only she had the answers and I could no longer ask her the questions. Oh my, how I took her on-going existence for granted, in spite of everything.

Who photographed this quilt?

Karen Biedler Alexander

Access and copyright information:

Restricted

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