The Pine Needles Quilt Guild held their highly anticipated and greatly missed Holiday Home Tour on Saturday, December 3rd, in Wrightwood. This is the first time the event has been successfully held since before 2019. The past two years were canceled due to COVID, and prior to that, there was a year when a massive snowstorm forced them to cancel the much-loved event. Quilt Guild Chairperson, Marlene Bowman, expressed how thrilled they were to hold the event, saying, “I know the community was excited to have it back. It doesn’t feel like Christmas if we don’t have ‘The Holiday Home Tour.'”
The tour included five festive homes throughout Wrightwood decorated front to back with Christmas decor and exquisitely charming handmade quilts. The beautiful quilts were proudly displayed over couches, on beds, in bathrooms, and over upstairs banisters. Everywhere you looked, there were immaculate works of art in different shapes, sizes, themes, and colors. Even the artists who created the quilts were from a diverse age group. Bowman’s 16-year-old granddaughter, Amelia Owen, had her quilt on display in the tour, which was a labor of love and included some collaborative effort from members of her Girl Scout Troop, #249. Bowman said, “I taught my grandkids how to quilt. None of my kids know how to quilt, but my grandkids do.”
Like quilts, families are stitched together with love and homeowner Lynn Mattice-Yost treated everyone like family when she opened her abode to visitors of the Home Tour. Lynn’s mother, Bernice Mattice, passed away in September of 2022 at the age of 94 and was a prominent figure in the community and a successful business woman. “She would have loved to be here” said Lynn who was scheduled to be on the Home Tour back in 2019 but was canceled due to the snow storm. Like her mother, who was known to bake dozens of loaves of pumpkin bread for her church, Lynn greeted visitors with freshly baked treats. “I love it. This is my thing, I really enjoy making the cookies and doing the decorations” said Lynn. Everyone who made their way into the kitchen was greeted with homemade cookies and a story about the vintage 1960’s Tappan Fabulous 400 electric range that was nestled in the corner of her kitchen and used to bake the delicious holiday desserts.
Another show-stopping part of the tour included quilt displays by featured quilt maker Diane Armstrong that spanned three rooms and took up an entire upstairs apartment in one of the fabulous homes. The Wrightwood Museum was also included in the tour for an additional $5 recommended donation, and had an impressive antique quilt exhibit that showcased historical and handmade quilts. The Holiday Home Tour event is the organization’s biggest fundraiser and raises money for quilting workshops and guest speakers that the Pine Needles Quilt Guild hosts throughout the year. If you are interested in becoming a member or want to learn more about getting involved, then attend a Quilt Guild meeting held on the second Tuesday of every month at 6:30 pm in the Wrightwood Community Building.
