The Color of Happiness Quilt Challange

Crow Gathering

Here are the winning quilts from the Color of Happiness quilt challenge held at Grandma's Attic this year. This challenge is a charitable event designed to raise awareness and funds for Sable House, a local agency assisting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in Polk County, Oregon.

Gramma's Snapdragons

You Are My Sunshine

Earlier this year, Grandma's Attic provided applicants with entry packets consisting of five different orange fabrics. Entrants were challenged to creatively incorporate these fabrics into a final quilt design. Proceeds benefited Sable House.

Voting began July 28th and ended August 5th. The general public was invited to vote for their favorite quilt, plus two categories: Best Use of Color and Best Interpretation of Theme. Votes were tallied and winners selected.

Winners are as follows:  

First Place:  "Crow Gathering" by Cindy Graff, who won a $100 gift certificate.

Second Place: "Gramma's Snapdragons by Brenda Lopez, who won a $50 gift certificate. 

Third Place: (Tie)  "You are My Sunshine" by Debbie Garvin, who won a $25 gift certificate and "The Color of Happiness" by Mara Johns, who won a $25 gift certificate.

The Color of Happiness

Best Use of Color:  "Over the Rainbow" by  Linda Sharples, who won a fabric bundle.

Best Interpretation of Theme: (Tie)  "Door to Hope" by Bettirae Willis, who won a fabric bundle  and "Bunny Happiness is Carrots Galore" by Mary Lindstrom, who won a fabric bundle.

Bunny Happiness is Carrots Galore

Door to Hope

Over the Rainbow

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Grandma's Attic, a Polk County business, is strongly committed to the health and safety of women and children in Polk County. The business fully supports the various local resources who share these goals and are dedicated to raising awareness of domestic violence and sexual assault issues through the arts and crafts. 

Snips and Snails....

Snips and Snails Block of the Month Club

Our newest block of the month club, Snips and Snails, is filled with classic quilt blocks created from beautiful contemporary batiks. It's a combination that promises to be fun and festive, while allowing you to make quilt blocks that have been quilters' favorites for decades.

Quilt blocks include such classics as Propeller, Windmill, Snail’s Trail, and Rail Fence. The batik fabrics are in shades of purple, green, blue, and violet. Each block is easy-to-complete and incredibly fun to put together. Each month, you receive the fabric and patterns needed to create one quilt block. A Finishing Kit to complete the quilt top is sent in the 13th month. When completed, this quilt measures 59" x 73" To join this club, click here.

Esther Howland's Valentine Cards

Esther Howland (1828-1904) is credited with creating the first Valentine's Day cards in the 1840s. Today, it is estimated that nearly one billion Valentine's cards are sent each year worldwide, and the Greeting Card Association honors her by hosting the annual Esther Howland Award.

Esther's family owned a large book and stationery store in Worcester, Massachusetts. When she was young, they sent her to the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary where she graduated in the class of 1847, as a contemporary of Emily Dickenson. While at the Seminary, she participated in annual Valentine festivities. Upon graduation, one of her father's business associates sent her an elaborate English Valentine. Made with perforated and embossed lace paper, these cards were popular in England.

Realizing that she could make these beautiful cards herself, she convinced her father to order supplies from England and New York City. She then made samples which she sent out with her brother on his sales trips. Secretly hoping for $200 in sales, she discovered upon her brother's return that he had garnered over $5,000 in advance sales. She asked her friends and family to help make them assembly line fashion, and her $100,000/year business was born.

Esther Howland Valentine

Esther is credited with introducing many innovations in Valentine design, including placing a brightly colored wafer of paper underneath the embossed lace to create more contrast. She also created the built-in shadow box that became popular in the latter part of her career.

In business for over 30 years, Esther established herself and earned a good living at a time when many women were marginalized. She never married, and during the last 15 years of her career, a knee injury forced her into a wheelchair.

Esther Howland Valentine

In 1881, Esther sold her valentine business to George Whitney, a valentine manufacturing company in business from 1866 to 1942. Whitney installed the machinery necessary to make paper lace domestically. By the time of her death in 1904, Esther had earned the accolade of "Mother of the American Valentine."

The Pantone Color Institute has announced that the color for the year 2018 is 18-3838 Ultra Violet. Pantone's website indicates that Ultra Violet is suggestive of the mysteries of the cosmos, the intrigue of what lies ahead, and the discoveries beyond where we are now. The color is often associated with mindfulness practices, which offer a higher ground to those seeking refuge from today’s over-stimulated world. The use of purple-toned lighting in meditation spaces and other gathering places energizes the communities that gather there and inspire connection.


Pantone's top 10 colors for Spring 2018 were created to encourage a sense of fun and playful release--a sanctuary of color ideal for unique and dramatic color mixing. They will be seen in Runway Fashions, quilts and sewing projects. For more information about these colors, click here.