SOAP LAKE - It's one of those occasions where the project was supposed to be about one thing and ended up evolving into something else. Happenstance, in a way.

Happenstance happened at a planning meeting for a show featuring artists from Soap Lake, and some of the town's history. It's scheduled for May at the Moses Lake Museum and Art Center.

Alison Gooding and Kathy Kiefer are in charge of the art show, and among the exhibits they envisioned was a community quilt, Gooding said. The quilt came up during a discussion with Gary Gregg, who was, among other projects, trying to raise money for a scholarship in memory of the late Brent Blake.

Blake was an artist and promoted art wherever he lived. His friends wanted to remember him, and help students studying art, with a scholarship at Big Bend Community College. They were (and are) trying to raise money for the scholarship fund - and enter happenstance.

There was a fundraising effort on the one hand, and there was a quilt on the other. "And then it just evolved from there," Gooding said.

The Soap Lake quilt will be the prize in a fundraising raffle, with the proceeds going to the Brent Blake Creative Arts Scholarship. The quilt will be on display during the art show.

So the word went out for quilt blocks, not just quilted fabric but any image that reflected Soap Lake, in the opinion of the artist. "Everybody's interpretation of what they think of when they think of Soap Lake," said Jan Shaw, who's in charge of putting the quilt together.

Blocks could be photographs on fabric. Beadwork. Yarn embellishment. Crochet. Painting, fabric painting, felting. Embroidery. Collage. "We ended up with what really truly is a community quilt," Gooding said.

"And then to have someone like Jan - that's just critical," she said.

Shaw is an accomplished quilter, and she's in charge of turning the quilt blocks into a quilt. "It wouldn't have happened otherwise," Gooding said.

Shaw warned her it wouldn't be easy, and it isn't. "We're making it work. There's a lot of variation with some of the sizing," Gooding said.

The felted quilt blocks were a little small. "I had to stretch and tug," Shaw said. Some of the fabric pictures were a little big. So far, everything has been persuaded to fit, Shaw said.

There's a little bit of Soap Lake history, a picture of a 1920s entrepreneur, another of an historic structure. There's a fabric replica of a Brent Blake painting. There's an aerial view of Soap Lake. The Soap Lake Senior Center is there, a tribute to the town's Ukrainian population and something for Cassie, the mascot at the old Soap Lake Liquor Store. "They (the squares) are all unique and different," Gooding said.

Gooding and Shaw decided the quilt would be a wall hanging, since it would be impossible to wash some of the squares. As a result they limited the size to make it feasible to hang.

But a quilt with all the squares would've been epic size, since there were so many submissions, Gooding said. "It seems like a small community. But it's not," she said. Shaw said the remaining squares can be included in another, smaller wall hanging.

"It's going to be so fun to look at this on the wall," Gooding said. "There will never be another one like it," Shaw said.

The quilt follows on the heels of another community art project, where artists used the doors from the town's now-demolished elementary school as the canvas. Those are completed but haven't been installed yet, Shaw said.

"We did the doors. Now we did a quilt. I don't know what we're going to do next, maybe a mural. No - we've done a mural," Shaw said.

Tickets for the quilt will be available during the art show.