Area quilter will have quilts on display, offer demonstrations

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Although 76-year-old Lela Miller didn’t really get into the hobby of quilting until she retired from teaching in 1996, the Vancouver resident who was born and raised in Ridgefield said she has always liked to sew and started sewing when she was about 8 years old.

“I’ve always liked sewing,” Miller said. “I always used to save scraps and pieces of fabric and things, and I thought ‘I’ll make quilts some day.’ Then I realized I couldn’t even make quilts out of most of it because the pieces weren’t cotton.”

Miller, who said she’s probably made more than 300 quilts since she started quilting in 1996, will have 50 of her quilts, traditional and contemporary, on display during two special event weekends, July 5-6 and July 12-13, at the North Clark Historical Museum, 21416 NE 399th St., in Amboy.

Museum doors will be open from noon-4 p.m. each day of those two weekends, and admission is free with donations accepted for museum maintenance and development. The Fort Vancouver Chapter 19 Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington will host the event.

All 50 quilts on display will be ones collected and created by Miller. Also over the event weekends at the museum, she will offer presentations/demonstrations. On the two Saturdays, July 5 and 12, Miller will give a presentation at 1 p.m., which will include building a panel quilt top and introducing “quilt kits.”

Miller said that panel quilts can sometimes be made in as quickly as 3-4 hours. The “quilt kits” that will be available during the presentation will have all of the fabrics already cut out and ready to go for a panel quilt.

Miller’s Sunday presentations, July 6 and 13, will include building a “pinwheel” block. She said the quick “pinwheel” block is a new method of quilting she just learned a few months ago.

“I want to show people how to do something that doesn’t take them forever,” Miller said. “If you’re going to do a quilt, you need to start with something that’s simple, something easy. If you start with something complicated, people will get discouraged and want to quit. It used to take about five years to complete a quilt because you had to do absolutely everything by hand. Now you can do one in a few hours if you want to.”



Miller started quilting in 1996 when she retired from a long career of teaching home economics and special education in several schools in the Vancouver School District. According to a biography on Miller written by Roberta Emerick of the North Clark Historical Museum, Miller’s first quilting experience started with taking a class at Hancock Fabrics in Hazel Dell in June 1996. Miller recalls it as an “all-nighter” beginning at 8 p.m. and lasting until morning. One of her tasks was to cut 149 pieces of a particular shape. Once the first 10-inch block was done and she saw how the many small pieces fit together, Miller continued the project. The project took six months before completing all of the blocks, then “sashing” (putting material in between the blocks), applying a neutral muslin on the back and “binding” (securing the edges), finally completing her first quilt.

It took two years for Miller to locate the fabric for one of her thematic quilts, “Farmer’s Market.” Some panel quilts of her are named things like “Deer in the River,” “Wolf Pack” and “Tractor and Farm.” The “Kaleidoscope” block is made from eight pieces of fabric cut in a special way to form a circle. Some of her popular quilts that will be on display at the museum will include “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” from the 1930s using vintage fabrics, “Irish Chain,” “Through the Window,” “Trip to the Zoo,” “Fishermen and Wildlife” and “Trains on the Track.”

“I like to do a lot of floral quilts, lots of colors,” Miller said.

The smallest of Miller’s quilts that will be on display is an 8-inch-by-10-inch one, while the oldest quilt, handed down from generation to generation named “Philadelphia Highway,” was made by her great-grandmother, Margaret L. Welch in 1890. Attendees will be able to read a short historical description that is attached to each quilt.

Of the 300 or so quilts that Miller has made over the past 18 years, she said she still has about 100 of them. She often makes quilts for family members as gifts, giving each of her two daughters one for Christmas in 2004 and making many for grandchildren, nieces and nephews to give them as graduation gifts. Her great-nephew just graduated from Battle Ground High School this past week and received a special quilt with bears in the woods on it.

Being a member of the Clark County Quilters, Miller also makes quilts for people for weddings, birthdays, for veterans and to donate to the Babies In Need organization. Miller is also a member of The Blessed Piece Makers from the Felida Baptist Church and Patchwork of Friends, a small group that meets monthly at different homes.

For more information on the upcoming special event weekends at the North Clark Historical Museum, call (360) 247-5800.