Congratulations to QNNtv's 6th Member Of the Month (MOM) winner:
Pearl Duggan
MOM for December 2006
Hi, my name is Pearl Duggan of Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada; a population of approximately 4000 people - a seacoast town, home of the famous replica of the Ship Hector which navigated across the North Atlantic ocean in September 1773 from Scotland.
Quilting is relaxing, draws out my artistic talents and is really therapeutic. I am self-taught and my first lesson came out of boredom being stuck in the house on a hot summer day, at the age of eight. My mother was blind, so father encouraged me to quilt by giving me squares of fabric to sew by hand, and then the instruction of assembling that the end product was a doll size quilt. I got so engrossed in quilting that outdoor activity soon became indoor activity as I lost myself in quilting.
Over years of quilting, I honed in on doing appliqués and pictorial biblical quilts.This one is with Father Brown in his Mass vestments standing next to Pearl.
Don MacIsaac
Father Brown and myself.
These two pictures are of the 15 decades of the rosary. Along with being a quilter, I am a member of the Pictou Pilgrimage Group. A very special priest by the name of Father Arnold Brown from New York City brought bus loads of pilgrims to the shrines over some 47 years - to date approximately 150,000 pilgrim, to Cap de la Madeleine and Ste.Anne de Beaupre. When I was in the Rosary Garden at the cape I got an inspiration to make a quilt for late Father Brown, because of his love for the rosary and his dedication of bringing pilgrims to the shrine.
Don MacIsaac, native of Pictou, is the organizer for the trip from Pictou and Father Arnold Brown from New York. I've been there 19 consecutive years on the pilgrimage trip. Pictou and New York have become best of friends. Father Brown passed away in December 2003, yet the trips still continue.
This quilt was done for John Normandin of Three Riviere, Quebec. He made the story of the miracle of the rosary bridge come alive for me. This church is Cap de la Madeleine.
I enjoy quilting by myself with a lot of good bouncy music in the background; however for group fun, I below to the Northumberland Quilt Guild. Northumberland Quilt Guild grew from a mini-group of 35 to today a total of 100 members plus honorariums and associates.
We gather monthly for our general meeting and then weekly for our social quilting each Tuesday. The program committee keeps us on our toes to create projects that will meet the community's needs, such as Quilting for Others where we donate our hand made or machine quilted quilts to hospitals (pediatrics/maternity; oncology; and dialysis); senior nursing homes, veterans unit, children homes, mental health, meals on wheels, and other requests that come to us throughout the year. We have many workshops throughout the year, instructed by some of our members or bring instructors from outside the guild. We also produce our own annual Quilt Show and Sale without duplicating the same quilts from previous years at the DeCoste Entertainment Centre in Pictou.
Over years of quilting, I honed in on doing appliqués and pictorial biblical quilts. This one is with Father Brown in his Mass vestments standing next to Pearl.
Our Guild members and sometimes members from other guilds get to relax and do workshops and increase their knowledge by attending a 3 day retreat every second year, at facilities within Nova Scotia. Retreat members come back to the guild to teach the rest of the group who are unable to go but look forward to expanding our own projects.
This is my tiny story about my love for quilting and MAY YOU ALL HAVE A WARM QUILTY DAY. For you quilters, the tip of the day is "Cut the fingers of the latex glove and put it on your thumb to grasp a needle and pull it through. This is so much easier for pulling needle through and inexpensive".
Thank you so much for your letters and for wanting to make me a Member of the Month. Please let me know if the pictures can be viewed.
Quiltily yours,
Pearl Duggan
Thank you Pearl and congratulations!