Quilters display fabulous fabrics

LaMoin Gentile displayed a white quilt spotted with holes around the edges. But instead of repairing the holes, Gentile instructed a group of 40 at Wednesday’s New Mexico Ag Expo to replace the border altogether.

Gentile also displayed a quilt which was made in the 1880s and contained silk fabric, which needed repair.

“Finding a fabric to match this quilt will be very difficult,” Gentile said. “It has pretty silk that you cannot repair. It’s a different fabric from a different time period.”

Gentile earned her degree in Home Economics from Eastern New Mexico University and recently learned about more fabrics at the national quilt show in Paducah, Ken.

“I love fabric and I wanted to do something with what I’ve learned,” Gentile said.

She said some of the old quilts are tough to repair because they are made from a fabric from the 1880s or 1930s.

In caring for quilts, Gentile advised people to wrap quilts in white sheets if stored in wooden chests. They also need to be refolded every three or four months.

“I learned that your quilts are not supposed to be next to wood without being wrapped,” Verdena Massey, who had four quilts in the quilt competition, said. “I didn’t take them out to refold them, either.”

Massey said she had three quilts win best of show at the Roosevelt County Fair. At the Expo Massey had house; stars and stripes; butterfly and fan; and Chinese flowered quilts in the quilt competition. Massey won $15 for third place for her Chinese flowers quilt.

Velma Gardner won a $50 first-place prize with her rose garden quilt and Dorothy Sanders won $30 for second place with her Delft blue quilt.

“It’s a great show and it’s beautiful,” Lou Ann Cortese, who belongs to Valley Quilting Club of Fort Sumner, said. “I think they should have a two separate competitions. They should have one for the hand-made quilts and another for the machine-made quilts.”

Cortese said she has a collection of between 45 to 50 quilts.

Rose Riley of Katie’s Flower Land in Clovis worked on a flower demonstration for the crowd after the quilt segment. She showed the audience how to create a sunflower reef for under $10. Riley used sunflowers because she said they are associated with spring. According to Riley, the sunflowers can be easily replaced with summer flowers such as petunias.