Canada 150 quilt honours country’s women
Thousands of women have helped shape Canada over the years, and the Orchard Valley Quilters Guild chose to honour 30 of those women through a special Canada 150 quilt project.
The group chose women throughout history who have had a significant role in Canada and printed their pictures on quilt squares and sewed them all together.
The finished product was on display downtown Kelowna during the Canada Day festivities.
“These are women that have shaped Canadian history and made a significant change for women, including the Famous Five from Alberta, who are accredited with achieving the 1929 declaration that declared women persons,” said Dorothy Northrup, member of the Quilters Guild.
Other women featured on the quilt included Clara Hughes, the only person to have won multiple medals in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, Alice Munro, who won the Nobel prize for literature, hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser and Kathleen Taylor, the first woman to chair the board of a major Canadian bank.
“We have a whole cross-section of women,” said Northrup.
The most difficult part of the process was narrowing down the women, she said.
“We have pilots and astronauts, we have sports people, we have lawyers, we have the first female prime minister, we have the first female chief justice of the Commonwealth, people from history who have had a significant role.”
Highlighting important women throughout Canadian history is important, especially on Canada Day, said Northrup.
“We’ve had to fight for the vote, we’ve had to fight to be persons and we’re still fighting to be accepted into programs,” she said.