Featured quilter focuses on big show, big quilts

By Matthew Nash • July 12, 2017 1:30 am
“Chicken Soup” took Murph Gerber a year to finish while living in Nebraska. She took a class at a quilt shop and received a new quilt block each month after finishing the previous one. It’ll be on display with dozens of Gerber’s quilts and hundreds of others on July 21-23 at Sequim Middle School. Sequim Gazette photos by Matthew Nash
“Chicken Soup” took Murph Gerber a year to finish while living in Nebraska. She took a class at a quilt shop and received a new quilt block each month after finishing the previous one. It’ll be on display with dozens of Gerber’s quilts and hundreds of others on July 21-23 at Sequim Middle School. Sequim Gazette photos by Matthew Nash

When Murph Gerber, 74, quilts, she likes to go big.

“I mostly make king size quilts,” she says inside her Sequim home, standing over a large, beautifully designed quilt in a guest room. “When my family comes from Nebraska, they like to be comfortable.”

Gerber’s family members aren’t the only ones who take comfort in her fine quilts. Fourteen previous featured quilters with the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s annual show selected Gerber to be this year’s featured artist. She’ll have a prominent display with quilts of all colors and sizes at the 31st annual Quilt Show July 21-23 at Sequim Middle School, 301 W. Hendrickson Road.

“I’ll admit I’m a good piecer (of quilt scraps) and almost always my points meet exactly,” she said. “But I didn’t feel I was as good as the other ladies.”

Gerber started quilting 25 years ago living in Lincoln, Neb., while working as a cytotechnologist, a laboratory professional, studying Pap smears.

“I always wanted to be a quilter, but I was too tired after work,” she said.

Some of her first quilts were for newborn grandchildren but she soon segued into various styles as time allowed.

One of her most memorable quilts, “Chicken Soup,” took a year to make with help at a Nebraska quilt shop. Each month she received a new block after finishing the previous block.

“It’s one-of-a-kind and there’s no pattern like it,” she said. “It really was a fun project.”

Over the years she’s developed a niche for piecing scraps together to make quilts too.

“I love scrap quilts,” she said. “Most of what I’ve done is bright colors.”

Sunbonnet in Sequim

Gerber and her husband Donald, a retired certified public accountant for the state of Nebraska, first visited Sequim in 1999 and fell in love. They came back two years in a row before moving in 2001. Her neighbor Loretta Bilow became her “big sister” in the quilt club inviting her to join.

“I came here with a lot of quilt tops so I knew I wanted to keep quilting,” Gerber said. “I wanted to get involved because I love to do it.”

Gerber, like most club members, says the group is “wonderful” and very “talented.”

“When I joined the group shared their knowledge and were very accepting,” she said.

She eventually became co-chairman of the community quilts program, which provides quilts to people in need and/or community groups, for a number of years and continues to help with projects in the club.

Gerber said she also took up longarm quilting, the ability to use a machine that sews the quilt top, batting and backing together, about 13 years ago, and has helped finish more than 100 quilts for friends and herself.

Passion project

Despite a rich resumé in quilting post-retirement, Gerber said it’s been hard to quilt with glaucoma, a condition damaging her eyes’ optic nerves due to pressure. She’s had eight surgeries on her left eye and four on the right but she is able to function up close, she said, but has a hard time longarm quilting.

“I try to put in as many hours as I can and get out here and quilt a few days a week,” Gerber said.

She does keep a good routine with quilting by going to the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s weekly Wednesday meetings at the Sequim Masonic Lodge, going to Karen’s Quilt Shop with friends on Thursdays and going to a longarm quilting group once a month.

“The pressure (in my eyes) is stabilizing,” she said.

Gerber said she is considering going to her eye surgeon in Nebraska for further procedures, but for now she’s focused on the quilt show and doesn’t feel stress being featured at the show.

“It’s just a joy to share and see other people’s work,” she said.

“I’m fortunate to have enough eyesight to keep going.”

See Gerber’s work at the quilt show, with the theme “Don’t Bug Me, I’m Quilting!” from 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Friday-Saturday, July 21-22; and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, July 23, in Sequim Middle School. Tickets are a suggested $5 donation. Tickets for the club’s raffle quilt by Muriel “Kitty” Niles are on sale 9 a.m.-3 p.m. July 15 at the Sequim Farmers Market and during the show for $1.

For more information, visit www.sunbonnetsuequiltclub.org.

Reach Matthew Nash at mnash@sequimgazette.com.

Murph Gerber saw the pattern for “Dove in the Window” at a show in Puyallup and continues to work on it as she readies for the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s show July 21-23. She guesses it likely won’t be ready for this year’s show but she has dozens of other quilts she plans to display. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash

Murph Gerber saw the pattern for “Dove in the Window” at a show in Puyallup and continues to work on it as she readies for the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s show July 21-23. She guesses it likely won’t be ready for this year’s show but she has dozens of other quilts she plans to display. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash

Glaucoma has made it difficult for Murph Gerber to continue longarm quilting, but she continues to work in the medium and with other quilts a few days a week, she says. Gerber is the featured quilter at the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s annual show.

Glaucoma has made it difficult for Murph Gerber to continue longarm quilting, but she continues to work in the medium and with other quilts a few days a week, she says. Gerber is the featured quilter at the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s annual show.