28/02/2023
Welcome to June's Quilt, a page dedicated to telling the story about a remarkable quilt that is on display in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia until April 22, 2023. You can buy raffle tickets for the chance to own the quilt, with the draw taking place on April 22 at 2pm.
June's Quilt was created by June Peffer and Louise Mussett, two women separated by 80 years and more than a thousand miles.
In 1940, June Newman Peffer of Pennsylvania started to make a double wedding ring quilt, returning to the project again in 1952. She cut out and pieced some sections of the pattern, but didn't finish the quilt.
June died in 1994.
Around 2019, while cleaning out her attic in her Boston home, her niece Holly found a paper bag containing the pieced sections of her aunt's quilt, some other fabric pieces cut for the quilt, additional fabrics, and some handmade cardboard quilt-piece templates. The bag also contained notes written by June in 1940 and 1952, along with a 1986 note by an unknown person.
Holly passed the bag on to her sister, Beth, who lives in Nova Scotia. Beth had asked her quilter friend Louise Mussett if Louise would be interested in looking at the contents of the paper bag, and Louise said yes.
Louise was impressed by the beauty, quality, and condition of the 1940s fabrics. With a love for restoring and rescuing old things, she decided to finish June's Quilt. Along the way, she solved the mystery of why June had been unable to make the double wedding ring quilt work - some of the smaller pieces required for the curved sections had not been included in the already pieced sections, and a corner-piece template was missing.
Carefully taking apart, re-cutting, and re-sewing those curved sections and making the missing pieces, Louise dipped into her late mother's fabric stash to find 1950s and 1960s fabrics that would coordinate with June's 1940s fabrics. With these additional fabrics, Louise created centre squares and corner triangles to finish the quilt blocks.
Completing it in 2022, Louise made some decisions about June's Quilt.
First, she wanted it to be enjoyed by others before finding a new home. So she offered it to the SMB Community Enterprise Centre to be displayed in the Centre's rotating textile art gallery for up to 8 weeks, with the public invited to see the quilt there.
Second, Louise wanted the quilt to do some good in the community. So she decided to raffle it off, with all ticket sales going to the St. Margaret's Bay Food Bank.
Finally, she wanted the quilt to be owned by someone who would use it and appreciate its unique history and beautiful vintage fabrics. With raffle tickets priced at $5/each and 3/$10, owning this hand-quilted treasure, which has an estimated value of $1,000, is open to everyone in the community.
