of cotton was very thin and
even, still the weight of a quilt made by one's grandmother is
considerable.

"We betook ourselves to the school building at an early hour on
Saturday morning and the fun began. We were to receive entries until
one o'clock, when the exhibition was to begin.

"In looking back now at this little event, I wonder we could have been
so benighted as to imagine we could do it in a day! After about an
hour, during which the quilts came in by the dozen, I sent in a
general alarm to friends and kindred for help. We engaged a carpenter,
strung up wires and ropes, and by some magic of desperation we got
those quilts on display, 118 of them, by one o'clock.

"One lovely feature of this quilt show was the reverence with which
men brought to us the quilts their mothers made. Plain farmers, busy
workers, retired business men, came to us, their faces softened to
tenderness, handed us, with mingled pride and devotion, their big
bundle containing a contribution to the display, saying in softened
accents, 'My mother made it.' And each and every quilt brought thus
was worthy of a price on its real merit--not for its hallowed
association alone.

"Time and space would fail if I should try to tell about the quilts
that came in at our call for an exhibition. There were so many prize
quilts (fully two thirds of the quilts entered deserved prizes) that
it is difficult to say what finally decided the blue ribbon. However,
the quilt which finally carried it away was fairly typical of those of
the early part of the nineteenth century. A rose pattern was applied
in coloured calicoes on each alternate block. The geometrical
calculation, the miraculous neatness of this work, can scarcely be
exaggerated. But this is not the wonder of the thing. The real wonder
is the quilting. This consisted in copying the design, petal for
petal, leaf for leaf, in needlework upon every alternate block of
white muslin. How these workers accomplished the raised designs on
plain white muslin is the mystery. How raised flowers, leaves, plumes,
baskets, bunches of fruit, even animal and bird shapes, could be shown
in bas-relief on these quilt blocks without hopelessly 'puckering'
the material, none of us can imagine."

No other inspiration that can equal our fairs has been offered to the
quilters of our day. Public recognition of good work and the premiums
which accompany this recognition augment the desire to excel in the
art of quilt ma