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Grandmother influenced festival’s featured quilter

ELoise Ogden/MDN Pamela Abrahamson of Minot has been quilting for many years. She is the featured quilter at this year’s 24th Annual Minot Prairie Quilt Festival.

When Pamela Abrahamson was growing up her grandmother, Clara Davick of Minot, was a big influence on her and her quilting life.

“She’s the one who influenced me to proceed with quilting,” said Abrahamson.

Her grandmother did many crafts as well as sewed clothes and quilted, which led to what Abrahamson calls her “huge obsession” for quilting. She learned how to sew and tie quilts on a wooden frame with yarn and pearl cotton.

Abrahamson, of Minot, is the featured quilter at the 24th Annual Minot Prairie Quilt Festival being held through today and Sunday in the Grand Hotel in Minot.

Abrahamson said she is honored to be selected as this year’s featured quilter.

This year’s featival has more than 200 quilts, a record number for the event. Quilts at the festival are from North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and Canada.

Abrahamson has a booth at the quilt festival being held today from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $3 per person.

Abrahamson joined the Minot Prairie Quilt Guild in 1997. Besides quilting, she said she has made many new friends through quilting.

One of her first quilting classes was taught by Vickie Haider through the Minot Adult Education Program.

Abrahamson said a favorite part for her of belonging to the local quilt guild is its “Block of the Month Exchange.” She has also enjoyed being the Guild’s historian for a number of years and assembling a photo album of the members working on their projects.

Abrahamson has enjoyed participating in the Minot Prairie Quilt Festival every year as a volunteer and has taken classes during the event.

Abrahamson does both hand and machine quilting.

When she started quilting, her favorite color of fabric for a quilt was blue and yellow. Now she has moved to the more earthy tones.

Working at Bernina Plus quilt shop in Minot with Julie Rostad, Abrahamson said she has been taught first hand the best quilting techniques and knowledge of quilting and she cherishes those day.

Abrahamson likes to make wall hangings with applique and has two Best of Show (purple) ribbons from the quilt show for her work. “It was quite an honor to get those. The competition is tough,” she said.

She said her favorite part of quilting is piecing quilt tops. Currently, she is working on a quilt top that has 48 different 6-inch pieced blocks. “Those are just tiny six-inch blocks and sometimes each little block takes more than an hour to do,” she said. So far, she has completed 27 blocks.

In her home, Abrahamson changes her quilts she displays there seasonally.

She encourages quilters to continue this special art and pass it on to the next generation. “Now it is my turn to help new quilters,” she said.

For new quilters

Pamela Abrahamson offers tips for someone starting out as a new quilter:

1. Come as a guest to our monthly guild meeting on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in Vincent United Methodist Church, (1024 2nd Street SE), Minot. Part of our meeting is Show-N-Tell. We also have instructional techniques demonstrated as well as a community service section where we as guild members make quilts and then we give them out every year to local places like the Domestic Violence Crisis Center.

(Bev Cushing, Minot, said quilts donated to groups and organizations also include Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, Minot Police and Fire Departments, Henry Towers, Red Cross and Trinity Hospital for infants.

2. Find a friend or buddy who wants to try something new and sign up for a quilting class. At our annual festival we have lectures and classes. You can be just totally inspired looking at the quilts in the festival’s Merchant Mall and visiting with the vendors. This year we have over 200 quilts on display and 13 vendors from around North Dakota and Minnesota.

3. Visit your local quilt shops for beginning quilt classes. In Minot we have three wonderful shops: Bernina Plus, Prairie Rose Quilt Shop and Good Vibrations Quilt Shop.

For more information about the festival and the Minot Prairie Quilt Guild, go to minotquilters.com.

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