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The drawing for the Museum of Ashe County History’s beautiful state-of-the-art crazy quilt lived up to its name – it took on a kind of “crazy” atmosphere.

The drawing, originally planned for Sunday, Oct. 27, at Shatley Springs, was the day of our first snowfall of the winter. Shatley Springs didn’t open that day or for the next three days, so the drawing didn’t actually take place until Thursday, November 1st.

“Because of all the delays, the actual drawing was a little anti-climatic,” said museum president Lonnie Jones.

Maybe anti-climatic for those doing the drawing, but it certainly wasn’t for Frances Wooten, the winner.

According to Talara Parrish, quilter and owner of the shop Everything Has A Story, Frances was ecstatic. Wooten lives in East Bend, and had been visiting Ashe and Shatley Springs the October Saturday of the Heritage Day Festival. She bought her first ticket then, but was so excited about the quilt, she came back with her church group and bought five more tickets. When she got the news that she had won the quilt, she and her husband came up immediately the following Saturday to pick it up.

The quilt is not the only artistic work associated with this project. The accompanying scrapbook, created by Carolyn Bosley, not only contains scraps of each quilt cloth, but also the memoir written by each donor that is associated with each piece of cloth.

Bosley has done such a beautiful job, each page is its own work of art. The original scrapbook is part of the winning prize and will be mailed to Wooten after each page has been scanned. The scanned pages will become several separate scrapbooks and will be available for sale in the Museum Gift Shop later in the spring. The original will be on display at the gift shop for the next several months.

Everyone associated with this project considers it to have been a great experience.

Parrish said that it is a wonderful opportunity to share the history of Ashe County, so much so that she says she would even consider doing it again in the future. She did the actual quilting and one of her most vivid memories is working late into the wee hours of Friday night before the scheduled drawing.

Parrish and her friend had the quilt laid out on a bed and were stretching and shaping it into a perfect rectangle so she could sew the hem around the edge and put the finishing touches to the work of art.