Virginia Rowe selected 'Quilter of the Year'

Each year, in preparation for the Tender Lovin’ Quilters Annual Quilt Show on July 3 and 4, the guild members in Troy make a choice among their group on who should receive the honor of Quilter of the Year.

This year the guild is happy to announce that this honor will be bestowed upon Virginia Rowe. 

This summer’s quilt show entitled “It’s a Tea Party” marks the guild’s 20th anniversary of hosting this show, which draws attendees from near and far.

Rowe began sewing at the tender young age of 12, when her mother took her shopping, and they bought a pattern and fabric so she could make a dress for her seventh-grade graduation ceremony. 

After they arrived home, her mother showed her how to thread the sewing machine and gave her the phone number of where she could be reached and she left. 

Virginia assembled the dress and hasn’t quit sewing since. 

For many years, Rowe sewed almost everything that she and her family wore. On  different occasions she even had her own sewing business, using the funds to help her get her nursing degree. 

Some of the projects she made were satin and velvet tuxedos and wedding dresses. 

During those years she made four quilts for family weddings all by hand, one of those, a cathedral windows quilt, her father taught her how to make. 

Rowe didn’t start machine piecing and machine quilting until her retirement as a nurse practitioner in 2006. 

First, she made quilts for her family, then potholders and vests, but in 2008 she discovered a need for charity quilts. 

For the past three years, she has given away 60 quilts per year to Hospice, Libby Care Center and the Women’s Shelter. 

This past year she also made quilts for the oncology center and dialysis center at St. John’s Hospital. She was overheard at a recent quilt guild meeting, saying “Oh don’t tell me there’s a need for quilts somewhere and not expect me to make them.”

Virginia loves fabric and quilting so much that she said if she were offered a diamond ring, she’d say ‘no give me the money so I can buy fabric and quilt it.’

Virginia and her husband, Hamp, have three children, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren all living in Georgia, so trips to the south are frequent.