Fifty handcrafted flower baskets from the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club will soon make the journey from sunny Sequim to Silicon Valley.
Club members held their annual quilt raffle on Dec. 8 inside the Sequim Masonic Lodge where “Club Member of the Year” Bonnie Cauffman drew Adrianne Mackey of San Jose’s name to win the club’s “Bountiful Beauty” quilt.
The 68-inch-by-80 inch quilt features hand applique embroidered baskets holding flowers representing each of the 50 U.S. states.
Pearl P. Pereira designed the quilt with multiple club members contributing work, including Loretta Bilow, Jan Bock, Doris Brown, Sharon Clayton, Anne Davies, Diane Davis, Karen A. Eldridge, Sandra Foster, Linda Huggins, Barbara Hughes, Dawn Kerns, Claudia Nerry, Barbara Parse, Martha Scott, Valley Smith and Nancy Wilcox, with quilting by Alanna Levesque.
This is the 35th year for the raffle, and the second year the drawing was not held during the group’s annual quilt show due to it being canceled over concerns about COVID-19.
Raffle quilt chairperson Barbara Davis said they extended ticket sales because a majority of tickets are sold during the show as part of Sequim Lavender Weekend the third weekend of July.
“The unusual circumstances caused by the pandemic meant that we had to seek alternative ways to sell our raffle tickets,” she said because the raffle is the nonprofit club’s biggest fundraiser.
Davis said Olympic Theatre Arts and the Sequim Farmers and Artisans Market allowed them to participate in events to promote the club and sell raffle tickets.
When First Friday Art Walks were reinstated last June, club member Nicole Driggs, owner of A Stitch in Time Quilt Shoppe, offered her shop as a home for the quilt for display and for other club members’ work, too.
During raffle sale events and on Dec. 8, club members displayed a new community service quilt with each block representing an organization that benefits from the quilts that they produce, Davis said.
She said the service quilt was inspired by club president Marianne Nolte with club member Linda Wesseler seeking organizations’ approval to use their logos. One block, Davis said, represents those they could support in the future.
Quilt blocks were made by Helga Barton, Toni Cline, Nancy Foro, Carol Geer, Eunice Kappenmeyer, Irene Snodgrass, and previously mentioned designers Bilow, Caufmann, Huggins, Nolte, Scott, and Wilcox with quilting by Rhonda Coler.
Also on Dec. 8, outgoing club board members were applauded for their efforts, and Cauffman was named “Club Member of the Year” for her time in charge of the Community Quilts program, and securing a grant to help pay for batting (stuffing) for club members.
Cauffman, a retired Peninsula College administrator of 38 years, said she joined the club in 2018 after retiring and that Community Quilts support several local agencies, including Olympic Medical Center, Sequim Food Bank and more.
For more information about the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club, visit sunbonnetsuequiltclub.org.
“Bountiful Beauty” served as this year’s raffle quilt for the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club and featured work from 18 club members. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash
This new community service quilt features a block of each agency the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club supports through its various quilt donations and raffles.
Bonnie Cauffman accepts the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club’s “Club Member of the Year” award during the club’s regular meeting on Dec. 8.
