Mrs. Lewis Gregor receives another award at the C.N.E.

(from the Guelph Mercury newspaper for August 21st 1947.)

Mrs. Lewis Gregor, R.R. #3, Guelph, has won third prize in the quilt competition sponsored by the Canadian National Exhibition, it was announced today.

Two Toronto women, Mrs. D. McLaren and Mrs. T. Urquhart were winners of the $100 prize for first prize in the competition, which had 50 entries. The quilts entered were the map of Canada design, outline of which was sent out in the spring by C.N.E. officials with each entrant required to work out her own ideas as to design, colours, et cetera. Mrs. Gregor said she outlined the provinces and resources of each district, drawing on her own imagination as to the different colours and symbols to be used. Worked on a white top, they made a riot of colour.

For example, she described how she used yellow material for the wheat belt to represent the yellow harvest; for the lumber industry, the green of the trees; in the mining districts, orange material for gold ore, and silver for the silver mines; for the districts where coal was found, black material had its place. A rich purple in the Niagara peninsula represented the grapes of the vineyards there, and for the farming communities a plow was quilted in, in distinctive colours.

Quilted in at the bottom of the quilt was the eagle representing the United States and in another corner, the coat-of-arms of Canada had its place. Symbols quilted in such as icebergs in the north, whales, ships in black representing the grain carriers of the Great Lakes and ships in white on the two oceans were part of the intricate detailing of this prize-winning quilt.

This is not the first time that Mrs. Gregor has been so honoured. She has shown quilts at the exhibition on three previous occasions and each time won first prize, achieving something of a record. The last year of the C.N.E., before the war brought a halt to the event, her quilt, the coat-of-arms quilted on a pink background, won first prize with one hundred percent, which means the work had absolutely no flaws. In 1936, a story and picture on her prize-winning quilt were carried in one of the leading American magazines and Princess Alice of Athlone, wife of Canada’s former Governor-General said it was the most exquisite quilting that she had ever seen. She also received letters of congratulations from the House of Commons and Mr. R. W. Gladstone, commending her on her fine showing.

Mrs. Gregor pointed out that the two months allowed for making the quilt were not long enough to do it justice, especially coming as it does at the busy time on the farm. She said if officials would announce the details during the winter months when farm women had more spare time she felt that it would give competitors on the farm, at least, a chance to do a better job. As it was, along with all her farm work in the spring, picking and canning strawberries, looking after her garden, etcetera, she said she sometimes worked far into the night in order to finish it for entry in the competition.

Asked if she ever made quilts for sale, Mrs. Gregor replied that she did, but said that she was keeping all the special prize ones for her own four children.

The prize-winning quilts along with the other most outstanding of the fifty entries will be kept on display in the women’s building throughout the exhibition.

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