When Ludwick Graphics employee John Hall saw the white embroidered quilt hanging on the wall of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival office while delivering some of the festival printed programs last month, he was immediately intrigued.

Upon learning that he could have a chance to win the hand-quilted work he just as quickly paid for a $20 raffle ticket in hopes of having it displayed inside his own home.

Needless to say, Hall was more than pleased when the festival announced that he was the winner of festival’s raffle Monday morning, said Dogwood Festival Secretary Bobbie Jo Hartline.

“He was just floored when we told him his name had been drawn from the basket,” Hartline said.

While the decorative piece of fabric will soon be on its way from its stay at the festival office to its new home, it leaves a hefty contribution to the city’s fine art community in its wake — namely, an over $1,500 one.

The Dogwood Fine Arts Festival managed to raise that sum via its raffle of the quilt, which took place before and during the annual festival, which wrapped up on Sunday. The proceeds will go toward the city’s Sculpture Preservation Fund, which assists in the maintenance, cleaning and upkeep of the over a dozen public works of art located within the city.

The late Beatrice Eggebrecht, a quilting artist from St. Johns, Michigan, created the quilt, which features an elaborate design of pink dogwood flowers atop a white fabric canvas. A local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, was given the quilt as a gift, and sought to donate the work to the Dogwood Festival for their use, given its motif, Hartline said.

“It was this fine thread that led this story to us,” she said. “[The donor] told me she had this quilt, and that she wanted it to benefit more people than just herself.”

Members of the festival’s visual arts committee suggested that the quilt be used to raise money for the maintenance of Dowagiac’s collection of public sculptures, which the donor agreed to, Hartline said.

Now with a mission in mind, festival organizers began selling $20 raffle tickets for the quilt, sharing the unique story behind its creation and how it came into possession of the festival with people from the community and beyond, Hartline said.

Even without the backstory, though, the beauty of the piece itself sold a lot of tickets, she said.

“The craftsman ship of the quilt is obvious,” Hartline said. “You can see that each of the stiches were sewn by hand. [Eggebrecht] had put a lot of love into it.”