Canada’s 150th birthday is fast approaching and Vernon’s Margaret Sabine is waving the flag.
The 82-year-old recently completed a Happy Birthday Canada quilt after six months and it will be presented to daughter Janice Clark, who is on kidney dialysis.
“She was so very, very tired,” said Sabine.
Sabine and her husband Howard travel to visit Clark in Alberta about three times a year, and when their daughter visits here, she receives dialysis treatment at the hospital.
The quilt will be given to Clark for her 54th birthday in September, after it is displayed during the Interior Provincial Exhibition in Armstrong.
The maple leaf pattern used for quilting the hand-made design was a lucky find from one of the employees at Country Quilts and Collectibles.
“It was the husband of the woman who quilted it, and he was just going through stock and found it,” said Sabine.
She went through a long process of finding the right materials and designs she envisioned, but she kept at it day after day.
“It can get frustrating when you can’t find the right colours.”
Her search started in December 2016, and when she had her elements, she started the long process of cutting and measuring everything by hand.
“I made sure everything would fit,” said Sabine.
Sabine started quilting in 1991, when she retired and moved to Vernon from Fort McMurray, Alta. and she estimates her quilts number between 40 and 50, not including some smaller projects.