Quilt show honors Pat Anderson
The memory of quilter Pat Anderson will be honored at the 2014 Mission Mountain Quilt Guild Show held in Ronan during Pioneer Days. Anderson was an avid quilter who passed away May 16.
Smiling from her senior picture and riding atop a convertible as homecoming queen, Pat Anderson enjoys life.
Pat and Larry Anderson smile on their wedding day 55 years ago.
Charlotte Sheumaker, Pat’s friend and sewing companion, holds up a sample of Pat’s work from a Judy Niemeyer pattern. This was a class piece, and Pat enjoyed sewing with the other ladies.
A Thimbleberries quilt, featuring pumpkins, yellows, greens and blues is one of at least 80 quilts in Pat Anderson’s house.
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RONAN — The theme of the 2014 Mission Mountain Quilt Guild show is “A Quilter’s Heart,” and that couldn’t be more appropriate since this year’s featured quilter is Pat Anderson. The show will be held in the K. William Harvey gymnasium on July 31 and Aug. 1 and 2. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Turdays and Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pat passed away on May 16 and was “the heart” of the Mission Mountain Quilt Guild. Quick to welcome a new person and usually smiling, Pat “had a remarkable eye for color,” according to Donna Corum, MMQG member.
“She was unbelievable,” Corum said, “ a natural.”
Remembering when Pat complimented her on a quilt, Corum said, “Me, from Pat Anderson; she was the queen of quilting.”
Charlotte Sheumaker, also a guild member, was a friend of Pat’s, and they sewed together often. They’d go on shopping trips, sometimes spontaneous adventures, or buy a bolt of fabric and split it. Meeting once a week for lunch, they’d take turns paying the check.
Pat liked to sew looking at the roses out Charlotte’s window, and Charlotte liked quilting on the deck at Pat’s cabin. They were fast friends as well as sewing buddies.
Pat also sewed with the Ayleen’s Thursday Quilters in St. Ignatius. Kay Krantz, MMQG member and Thursday quilter, characterized Pat as “just a genuine nice, nice person.”
When Pat joined the St. Ignatius women, she told them she wasn’t much of a seamstress since she learned after she retired from teaching, but she did meticulous work.
“Pat was a big part of her group, a positive influence,” Krantz said. “She left a big spot of love and a hole in our hearts.”
Ayleen Bain, Jessie Merwin and Pat were all original members of the MMQG.
Originally Pat took a few classes from Merwin, who was teaching at Betty Martin’s store, and then “she just took off,” Merwin said.
“She was always so kind, so willing to share. That’s just the way she was,” Merwin said.
At classes, she’d always bring extra fabric and was always willing to give someone a piece.
Pa and Merwin were honored as featured quilters at the 2012 MMQG show.
From an interview done then, Pat mentioned her family first; she and her husband Larry were married for 55 years and have four children, one deceased.
Quilting got “its hooks” into her when she and her daughter took a class at Thimble Magic, a Ronan fabric store, in 1985.
A teacher her whole life, Pat didn’t start quilting until she retired.
Her first quilt was a log cabin, and she was bound and determined to use the Serger sewing machine she’d gotten for Christmas.
“Betty kept saying a 16th of an inch makes a difference in a quilt,” Pat said, laughing, but she didn’t listen and the quilt needed to be remodeled.
Pat said she likes the camaraderie of quilting and, of course, the fabric, vibrant colors and burgundies and greens.
Pat said lots of her friends shopped at “Pat’s store,” as she called her stash of fabric. Her favorites were paisleys. When she passed away, she owned 11 sewing machines and had three rooms of fabric.
A generous person, Pat was always donating quilts for raffles.
One of the last times Sheumaker visited, Pat asked her to take her drawer full of flannels and continue to make blankets for babies at the hospital.
Always concerned about others, Sheumaker said, that’s Pat.
She had a big heart, a quilter’s heart.
