As a Red Cross volunteer, Wanda Lumsden has seen the effects of wildfires in the exhausted faces of the people who have lost it all. For 12 years, she would help them get re-established. Likewise, she has watched the forest rebuild. And that’s what inspired her Best in Show quilt After the Fires.

As her husband drives, Wanda Lumsden looks out the window and studies the shapes of the trees. Later, she sketched those branches as she saw them again in her mind’s eye and turned them into oil paintings.

“I’ve always like being outside and the beauty of our forest,” she says. “Like every province, we’re experiencing really devastating fires. We spend our summers under smoke. 2023 was a bad fire year in B.C.”

Fifteen years ago, she began quilting, then picked up art quilting in 2017.

Wanda, 76, knows that fires keep burning underground and can reignite. She learned that certain pinecones need a blaze to melt a waxy sap that holds their seeds inside.

“Mother Nature is pretty magical with how she plans it out,” she says. “I wanted to show that progression. With hotter and drier summers, our forests may never re-establish to what they are.”

Wanda sketched out this concept: a forest ablaze, then the smouldering remains followed by a rebirth. She worked methodically on each section over eight months.

She envisioned burnt edges of a book to divide the quilt into “chapters.” To get this effect, she used acrylic paint by Pebeo to thicken the fabric then trimmed it with tiny scissors so it would look charred.

“I’ve always loved to play with new techniques,” she adds.

This includes foils to add extra light to the flames and the embers left behind. She created the smoky haze in the second panel with Pebeo paints as well.

Next, she reflected on a campaign selling fireweed pens to support forest recovery programs; suddenly, she had an image for the third panel – a resilient plant that grows back first after the flames.

“Things just came together,” she says.

Finally, she tackled her favourite part of the process: free motion quilting. Given the range of colours, she make several thread changes throughout this phase.

At best, Wanda hoped to top the Art Quilt category, which she won in 2023 for her version of the Northern Lights in the Landscapes and Still Life group.

“I was absolutely stupefied,” she said humbly of earning Best in Show. “I was absolutely shocked when my Facebook messenger lit up with messages. I almost fell out of my chair.”

Building on her past successes

Wanda also placed third last year for Time for Togetherness in Landscapes and Still Life. It depicts a couple with a dog nearby a campfire as the night sky blazes above them.

Her first entry to Quilts Canada, in 2018, earned a Judge’s Choice Award.

With this success, her days as a painter seem behind her.

“I have too much fun with fabric,” says this member of the Chilliwack Quilters Guild. “I’m happy and appreciative for this honour.”