There are master chefs, master plumbers,
master electricians, the list goes on.
But have you ever heard of a master quilter?
Turns out a woman from Maine
holds that title. And many more.
Margaret Solomon Gunn
calls herself a dreamer,
and with every stitch she
brings her imagination to life.
So this is sort of like puttinge
bones into your quilt the. And once you
get the bones, then you can
add the details. The mechanical
engineer turned fulltime quilter
has been piercing together her n
works of art since her college
days in the late 80s. This is
an 84 inch quilt and I think I
spent ballpark 18 hours on it.
But it wasn't until the early 2000s that
Margaret really got serious about it.
I saw this ad on TV for
Project Linus and it was like,
make us a quilt, Donate it.
Sure, I can do that.
By the end of the year.
I think I'd made 40 and donated them.
The whole process of getting, you know,
back into sewing and getting too
something when the kids were sleeping,
and it was kind of fun and it sort of
rejuvenated that that love of handling
the textiles and and creating tt
love turned into a small busines
and a way for Margaret to lean
into her competitive side. I
was new. I was still learning what to do.
And how to do it. And somebody said, wow,
you ought to enter this as such and such.
Cold show. It wasn't.
And it turns out it was only
about an hour and a half from m.
Okay. Hey challenge on I I
didn't know what I was in for.
I really didn't.
It ended up winning the rookie of the
year award which is given to soe
who has been quoting less than a year
and I thought that was pretty n.
But the bigger picture of gettig
to go to this show and to see al
the the beautiful quilts hanging
is that I was motivated.
I was like, wow, that was an accident.
I'm going to make one for real this time.
She's not kidding.
It's called the Value of Violet.
Since
2011, Margaret has stitched
25 competition quilts.
She's won 82 top awards,
has taken home 33 best of shows
and yellow one on the wall over
there. That's another one that
is a fairly elusive that's
called a Masterpiece Quilt Awar.
And 37 people have ever won
one of these. But those awards
pale in comparison to her latest victory.
That's the big granddaddy of them all, where
this master quilter took home the Best
of Show award at an American Quilters
Association competition in Padu,
KY for her masterpiece she
named Sweet Madame Blue.
I stumbled upon these from an Etsy cellar.
This is a tatted Lace Doily.
And at the time, I had no clue
what I was going to do with thi.
You know, I'm, I'm a dreamer, we'll say.
And I just saw that and
thought it's kind of neat,
you know, I'll buy 10.
In the process of ordering them,
I realized that they they
were shipping from Turkey.
That gave her an idea.
Margaret decided to base her ene
design around Turkish inspired artwork.
There was just one problem.
I needed to make this with Blue.
And blue is not a color I work .
I don't decorate with blue.
I I don't do anything blue.
And it was like, oh, I have to use blue.
So I went, OK, challenge on.
She started the quilt in December of 2019.
It wouldn't be complete and ready for
competition until January of 20.
This is quilted. I went back afr
this and spent about six months adding.
Embroidery and beating and detailing to it.
Not only does she hand
stitch every single flower,
but she dyed all of her silk fa,
different shades of blue
to really nail her vision.
When I sit down and I start a q,
I'm not making it for anyone bu.
I'm fulfilling my design aesthe.
I'm doing things on it that I w.
I don't care what the
judges are going to think.
I'm going to put together the
best piece that I know how to
make and hopefully they like it.
The judges in Paducah didn't jut
like it, they loved it. Paducah
is a tough show. There's nearly 400 of the
best quilts internationally entered there.
The quilt is now on display in a museum
in Kentucky, and Margaret is aly
thinking about her next challen.
You don't enter the The Quilt show going,
Yeah, I'm going to win this one.
You don't. Every single one of .
You enter going maybe I'll ribb.
You can't be that person who trs
to make what they want to see or
what you think they want to see,
because you won't.
You won't satisfy every one of .
They're all different.
It's it's it's in your soul.
I think is where I see it.
By the way, in addition to that ribbon,
Margaret took home a prize
of $20,000 for her quilt.
And if you're wondering where te
name Sweet Madame Blue came fro,
Margaret listened to a lot of
sticks while she was working on.
My kind of girl love it.