A Gathering Place for Expression: The Elizabeth Bishop Festival Market

One of the main features of the EB Festival taking place in GV on 8 August 2015 is the “Festival Market” where over a dozen artists and artisans will gather to share their creations. This post is a profile of quilter Wanda Frizzle.

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The daughter of a well-known quilter, Wanda developed an interest in her mothers craft during childhood. Her mother made her last quilt at age 93, but Wanda has carried on the family tradition. Even Donnie, her husband, works with her except on the actual quilting. Although she gave the first quilts she made as gifts to family members, Wanda has been making quilts for sale for the last 25 years

She finds quilting relaxing. Selecting the pattern and then the right materials to complement is like painting a picture, but the hours of intricate stitching makes the completed quilt a work of art.

Most of Wanda’s quilts are sold from her own home, although she does display her work at various quilt and craft shows. She has sold to people from across Canada and in many states including California, Florida, Alaska, and even in Japan

A good eye for color, a love of sewing and lots of patience make this time consuming work a source of enjoyment and achievement, when another quilt is finished.

[Ed. note: Elizabeth Bishop’s great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Black Hutchinson Gourley was a quilter and Bishop inherited one of them. One of Elizabeth Hutchinson Bulmer (Bishop’s grandmother)’s quilts is in the Bulmer family collection at Acadia University: http://openarchive.acadiau.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/acadiaAnnap/id/2439/rec/36]