Celebrating 50 Years!

A look back at CCQ highlights over the years

1974 - 1978

This pattern "Mother's Favorite Flowers" was designed by Yvonne Uptmor. In 1978 CCQ members provided 46 hours of hand quilting over an 8 day period at Providence Academy. This was a raffle quilt (no winner listed) and raised $1239.97 for the Mother Joseph Foundation, which was a state wide project to place a statue of Mother Joseph in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol Building in Washington DC.

CCQ member Sandie Hollister provided “the rest of the story.” Enough money was in fact raised because Sandie and her family saw the Mother Joseph statue in Washington DC in the summer of 1981. Each state was allowed to place two statutes in this hall and Sandie’s family was proud to view the two from Washington.

Nora Aldridge, President of CCQ plays a tune on the $1000 Kimball piano which was purchased for the Rudy Lupke Center in Vancouver. A quilt that took more than 30 different quilters two years to complete was raffled off to raise funds for the piano. Diane Christenson of Ridgefield was the lucky winner of the quilt and the proceeds were then donated to the center. Lovely certificate given to the guild about this donation on June 4, 1979.

Marji Hadley, who was one of the founders of our guild in 1974, took the office of secretary when CCQ was formed and also the designer of our logo, the Apple tree. Marji graciously gave the guild all rights to the logo for “any and all future projects.” This design was used in the raffle quilt in 1981 and the winner was Signe Strawn.

Marji attended the July 2023 guild meeting and brought her original apple tree quilt. She is shown here with her son and daughter-in-law.

1979

1979 was a very busy year for CCQ. Here are a couple of the highlights:

Washington Governor Dixie Lee Ray was invited to the 4th Annual quilt show on April 21- May 2, 1979. Governor Ray sent a lovely letter of regret that due to other time commitments she would not be able to attend the show. The Governor further wrote, “I am glad that women in groups like yours in Clark County are still creating beautiful handmade quilts; it is an art that should not be lost. Warm wishes for a successful show."

In August of that same year, a very special quilt display was created for 10 Japanese women and their instructor who were on a tour of Vancouver and other West Coast cities. Their director, Kazui Nihonmatsu of the Patchwork Quilt Center in Japan, had read about the Vancouver Quilt guild in a national quilting magazine. The Quilt Center in Japan was rather new and even though Mr. Nihonmatsu did not teach quilting techniques, he did teach the history of quilting. The students wanted to learn as much as they could about quilting techniques, color, etc., and were very interested in antique, patchwork, and Amish quilts. Interestingly, the students were not as interested in the modern quilts as "they were too bright in color." CCQ president Nora Aldridge had been working on the special display since May and each of the Japanese women were give a quilted tote bag with our Apple Tree logo as a gift made by our guild members.