When Carole Wagner set out to sew a quilt for the Whidbey Island Fair, she didn’t expect to nab the Grand Champion prize.

Yet the honor became hers this year, as her hand-sewn quilt depicting a pastoral scene of farm animals and a barn caught the eyes of the judges.

Wagner couldn’t believe it when she heard the news.

“There was that huge blue ribbon,” she said. “I thought, what on earth is that hanging from the rafters?”

The South Whidbey resident, who also won in the art quilting category, has been quilting for the past 15 years, a hobby she started shortly after her spouse passed away.

“I had a major life change,” she said. “I was without my husband, and I got into quilting. It was good fellowship and I found I really enjoyed it.”

She moved to the area and started a quilting class at Island Church of Whidbey. With others, she has made quilts for the bereaved, newlyweds, the sick, new babies, missionaries and homeless individuals.

Sherry Joyner, Wagner’s daughter, said her mother is a very giving person.

“This is an awesome thing to happen to her, because she’s gone through so much,” Joyner said.

Wagner spent the past several months recovering from heart surgery. With so much time on her hands, she was able to sit and do needlework for hours on end.

Her award-winning quilt in this year’s fair is sewn entirely by hand in the applique style, a technique in which one or more pieces of fabric are attached to larger background fabric to create patterns.

“That’s probably one of the hardest kinds of quilts to make,” Wagner said.

The piece includes two farmers, a grain silo embedded with tiny fair-related words, the year 1923 and plenty of chickens standing on the backs of other barnyard animals.

Wagner explained that she made the quilt in honor of the fair’s 100 years.

Photo provided Carole Wagner’s quilt, which won Grand Champion, depicts a peaceful farm scene honoring the fair’s 100 years.