Colleen Murray was left stunned when she heard that her handmade quilt and cushion won special prize and first prize at the 2017 Royal Agricultural Society of Natal Show recently.

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Towards the end of the 1980’s Colleen began her beautiful butterfly quilt to gift it to her daughter, Tracey. She had sewn it together, and needed to add the back ground quilting. Colleen grew sick of seeing butterflies and was tired of sewing.

In 1989 she had to go work and so she stored her unfinished quilt in the top shelf of her spare bedroom and there it lay as a ‘UFO’ (unfinished object) for many years. After about 10 years of working as a librarian at the Estcourt Town Library, she retired in 1999.
With still no urge to finish the quilt, Colleen nursed her frail husband who passed in 2002.

“I gave no thought to the UFO during the following years, my urge to do any needlework completely died,” explained Colleen.

In January this year Colleen came across her butterfly quilt that seemed so forlorn, sad and unloved at the back of the cupboard.
And that is when the quilting bug bit… hard.

With much enthusiasm, Colleen quilted and quilted until at last it was complete. Her friends were impressed with the outcome and decided to enter it onto the Royal Show, held in Pietermaritzburg annually. Colleen did not expect to win any prizes but to her surprise won two. She won special prize for her quilt and first prize for her cushion.

Now you might be thinking wow the cushion won first prize over the quilt, but no, special prize is better than first prize and Colleen did not know this. The category entered was Article in Patchwork and these where comments from the judges at the show; “WOW! What a lot of work! Embroidery and embellishments are well done. Satin and lace adds interest, the frill finishes the quilt off beautifully.”

Her cushion got similar comments. A few years back Colleen’s friend, Naomi Feather‘s quilt and cushion also won the same prizes.

The women are also part of the same local quilting club. The two received the news very well.

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