Drika Foster of Moorefield won the Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies competition for hand quilted quilts held in February at a convention at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.
She was presented with her awards at a regular meeting of the Grand Quilt Guild at the Fergus Legion on March 10.
Foster’s creation, Garden Trellis was machine pieced and hand appliquéd. It originally won at the local fair in Fergus last September and went on to win at the District 7 competition in November.
It then competed against the provincial districts at the convention in Toronto, of which there were 15 districts eligible to submit quilts.
Foster began quilting some 40 years ago. As a young mother with small children, she went with a neighbour to a local church and joined a Mennonite sewing circle.
She said her stitching was not that great at first, but friends of the Grand Quilt Guild in Fergus, of which she is a member, often comment on her abilities to “whip up” another treasure for the “Show and Share” that is held at the end of each meeting.
Foster’s quilts have been entered in competitions mainly at the Fergus Fall Fair, Owen Sound Fair’s Fruits of our Labour and International Plowing Matches.
She has won numerous prizes; one memorable time being the Viewer’s Choice award at the Wellington County IPM in 2000 in Elora for her creation that included woodland birds and animals. Organizers proudly hung it separately at the top end of the quilt tent for all to view.
Foster keeps few of her quilts, sending them out to family and friends as far away as the orient. In fact, she says the only quilts in her house are the one on her bed and the one she is just finishing.
She accepted her prize winning rosette and a cheque for $500 from Andrew Taylor, a past fair ambassador and current president of the Fergus Agricultural Society.
