I’ve written before about how special my quilt guild (the Heart of Georgia guild) is to me. I recently celebrated my 20th anniversary as a member and the sisterhood just gets stronger. I spent this past weekend with those sisters at our biennial quilt show. If you are local, I hope you had a chance to attend.
This year’s show displayed nearly 200 members’ quilts. And the 58 quilts hanging on the rails above the floor level were made by our guild for residents of the Methodist Children’s Home. Each resident receives a quilt when he/she moves in and keeps it for life. Our guild makes many quilts for this endeavor.
Quilt Show weekend is a special time for us. We work together to present some of our latest work to friends and family – and to visitors who may be quilters, but not members of a guild as well as those who want to become quilters. We want our sisterhood to grow!
I’ve written about several shows in the past and included photos of fabulous quilts. I’m doing that here for this latest display, but this time I remembered to take photos of some of the work that goes into getting it all together. This year, our quilt show leader was Helen. She did a fabulous job of organizing everything, but it’s not a one-person job. Everyone helped!
Here is Dewey demonstrating use of his longarm machine at the show. Yes, he loads all that in his trailer, brings it over, sets it up to demonstrate, and allows visitors to try it out!
Before the show can even be laid out, someone has to collect all the information on the quilts and plan the layout. This year, and for the past several shows, that person has been Dewey. Dewey is our quilting brother. A gifted artist at the longarm machine, Dewey is also quite the handyman and quilt show designer.
Dewey arrived and started setting up the poles (he had help from a quilter’s husband) and identifying which quilt would hang where. This is after two weeks’ work developing a layout on computer and then on the butcher paper. Here Kaye is checking her quilts in. Each quilt is labeled and in a pillowcase. Data has already been sorted to assign a number to each quilt so it can be hung in the correct space.As all those quilts come in, members resort by number to put them in place.Here you see some quilts ready to be hung and stepladders ready.And, the quilts are up! I took no photos in progress, I was busy on a ladder.Sherry was busy (with some helpers) in the weeks ahead of the show making ribbons for the awards. These are the three ribbons to be awarded to recipients of votes by all viewers who attend the show. There were 18 more ribbons made to give to winners of votes by members on Thursday night.While Thursday night’s votes were being counted, members and friends enjoyed food and conversation.Julie’s farm-themed quilt was a big hit!Carol’s Montana quilt was beautiful! By the way, there were many many beautiful quilts here…I shouldn’t share them all….just a representative sample.Kathy’s scrappy quilt was fabulous…I had to share a closeup of her feather quilting on her longarm machine.Deann won a ribbon for best hand quilting….for a different quilt…but my photo of this quilt shows the stitches more clearly.Sheila’s masterpiece, Mimi’s Garden, won best appliqué and was quilted by Dewey on his longarm.This is my Celebration quilt. It took home a ribbon for best quilting on a home sewing machine.
After everything was set up and ready, we welcomed visitors from 9:00 – 5:00 for two days. Then on Saturday afternoon, all this process was reversed. Quilts were dropped (gravity helped that process go faster than putting up), folded, reinserted into those pillowcases, resorted by quilter’s name, checked out, and carried home.
We’ve had a few days to put everything away at home and reflect on the fun we had. We are already thinking about the next quilt (it’s probably in progress) and planning how to make the next show better. I hope wherever a quilt show fits in your life; as a participant or a visitor, you make time to experience it.
I've stitched my way through life. Early skills in utilitarian and decorative sewing have merged with art in the world of quiltmaking. My love of journaling has now crossed into the cloth world, too. I love old songs, old souls, old words; my collections attest to my fascination with memories.
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4 thoughts on “Putting on a Show”
I live in the NW suburbs of Chicago. There are anywhere from three to five quilt shows a year within an hour’s drive. I do appreciate the work that goes into producing these shows, as frankly, a quilt up close and personal is worth a thousand pictures. Thank you for your post, an enjoyable read.
I live in the NW suburbs of Chicago. There are anywhere from three to five quilt shows a year within an hour’s drive. I do appreciate the work that goes into producing these shows, as frankly, a quilt up close and personal is worth a thousand pictures. Thank you for your post, an enjoyable read.
Wonderful write-up Sandy!
I wish you could have been here with us!
Me Too! Maybe next time…..