Portland Modern Quilt Guild - The Guild Medallion

PMQG Guild Medallion - top before quilting

At the end of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting and holiday get together Thursday night, I turned to a friend and started telling her about a couple from the Northwest Quilters, Bob and Maureen Orr Eldred. Bob and Maureen always buy a lot of raffle tickets at the meetings, and it's always fun to see the reaction when they win something every time. My friend smiled. She knew Bob and Maureen, too.

About half an hour earlier, at the end of the social I still hadn't bought my raffle tickets, so I made my way over to the table. Tickets were $5 each or 5 for $20, so I bought 25 tickets, thinking about how Bob and Maureen always buy their raffle tickets and have such good luck. Maybe one of the tickets would be the winning ticket for the incredible Guild Medallion, one of the two beautiful quilts up for raffle. Even if I wasn't the lucky winner, proceeds would go to the guild, and they deserved every cent.

Kelly talks about the Guild Medallion - what a gorgeous quilt!
A second raffle quilt, a stunning Ohio Star, is displayed on the wall.

Minutes later, everyone was seated again and the drawing was taking place. The number was 6851, and the room was abuzz as people looked at their tickets, and looked around the room. It took a minute to look through all the tickets, and there was number 6851, the fourth of my 25 tickets. Almost uncanny, but I knew the more tickets I bought, the better the chances would be. Still, it was a little stunning to see Bob and Maureen's strategy at work. Now I'm a believer.

The Guild Medallion is a special quilt, made by a very special group of people-- the 2014 officers of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. It was beautifully quilted by Nancy Stovall, an expert long-arm quilter who has a long-arm quilting business here in Portland, and was a year-long project. At every meeting during the year, I admired the progress with the quilt and other "medallion-alongs" made by guild members. There were 19 of them on display at the Thursday's meeting, and I was very impressed.

The quilt is stunning!

Earlier in the evening I went to see Elizabeth Hartman at Modern Domestic. Elizabeth is a very impressive quiltmaker and member of Portland Modern Quilt Guild. She was showing quilts and signing books, and after I bought all three of her books and got them signed, I told her I planned to buy a lot of raffle tickets at the meeting later in the evening. So, I dashed off to find an ATM.