Anyone who knew my Mom knows that she contributed to the Mariposa Fair in many ways. From the early days when she headed up the PTA booth, which included gathering 75 different fruits and vegetables for display, to the years when she sold tickets for entry, first at the front gate with my Dad and then for many years at the back gate, to her 45+ years of entering 60+ items in the baked good competition. We all participated in these activities, more or less willingly. I remember years of 6 a.m. to midnight stints at the fair while she sold tickets, to the many years of very willing help transporting her baked entries (she needed to enter 6 but always set aside 7 of the cookies, muffins, etc. so whoever helped transport got to eat the extras). Yum!!!
For the last 20 or so years of fair participation my Mom would purchase a fair t-shirt. Many of those shirts were worn with pride through-out the year, and somewhere along the line Mom decided she would store them to eventually make a t-shirt quilt. During the three years we took care of my Mom at home, we would always look for projects, whether it was yardwork, sorting and cleaning, or in one case, I pulled out the box of t-shirts to begin working on the t-shirt quilt. Thus began the making of the Fair Quilt, which now resides in each of our homes as it becomes the “Traveling Fair Quilt”, like the jeans in the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”. Since I recently acquired the quilt in turn, I decided this was a good time to include it in my blog series.
The quilt was started by my cutting out the design on the front of the t-shirts. Having never made a t-shirt quilt before, I reasoned that the stretchiness of the t-shirt material would be an issue, so I backed each t-shirt square with a piece of muslin. In my week of care I got all the squares cut in a similar size and started putting them together. I think Mom was in a bit of a panic seeing all those shirts cut up, even though she had long talked about making the shirts into a quilt, seeing them cut up caused her some angst.
There was a large collection of shirts, one for each year (and some duplicates), illustrating the theme for that year's Fair. I have to give the creative types on the Fair committee credit, some of these themes were very good! See this gallery for a detailed look at all the t-shirt designs used.
Next, along came sister Fran. She had the idea of using denim to put between the squares of fabric. Along with the denim from the jeans she used came decorative pockets or other
unique aspects of the jeans, which she strategically placed on the quilt.
Then came many weeks of quilting. We would each quilt one or more squares while we were there, in whatever design came to mind. Sister Liz had the idea of quilting butterflies (because Mariposa means “butterfly” in Spanish), so we all tried our hand at that.
Sister Mary came up with the border fabric, once again continuing the butterfly theme. After that was attached, Liz knew to add a casing so the quilt could be hung and displayed. At the end we added whimsical embellishments, including a bell on the clown's nose, a gold "amigo" pin, and several other embroidered pieces.
.As a finishing touch, Fran added this butterfly in the corner to commemorate the making of this quilt.
Now that the quilt was done, then what? By this time, my Mom was in the Ewing Wing, and her ability to attend the fair was limited. Over the years, she had collected her fair recipes in a binder, my sister Fran compiled all her favorites into a cookbook. This was offered to family and friends as a way to make money for the Fair.
At the Fair that year, with agreement from the Fair staff we set up a table in the baked goods room where Mom’s contributions had been on display all those years, and the quilt provided a back-drop for our table.
Though the funds gathered by cookbook sales were worth the time and trouble, the best part of those days were the stories people shared about my Mom. The one I remember most was the minister from our church, who shared that when she first arrived at the parsonage and found the welcome basket put together by the women of our church, it was my Mom’s walnut brittle that convinced her “she was going to like this place”.
Like her Chinese Fried Walnuts that were shared far and wide, Mom’s brittle and other baked goods brightened many people’s days over the years. Bake sales, birthdays, or just casual sharing of the results of her baking were part of what made my Mom special. That year we offered a prize for the best recreation of Mom's Chinese Fried Walnuts, and since then several of us have taken up the challenge of recreating her nuts and sharing them.
The fair quilt also traveled to Sisters, Oregon for their annual quilt show in 2019. Liz entered this and several of her quilts and we had a “sisters’ reunion” in nearby Sunriver, Oregon. A good time was had by all, and the story of the fair quilt was shared further.
As the fair quilt travels around our homes, it is one more reminder of the “good old days” of fair times gone by, and of how we joined together to show love for our Mom with every stitch.
Comments