Welcome to Quilt Village

One aisle of bed quilts and large wall hangings.

I just spent three days with my quilting sisters.  We hosted our guild’s quilt show and had a blast!  Normally held biennially, it had been four years since our big weekend party.  Covid had forced us to cancel our show in 2020, so we were ready to get back to business sharing our love of quilting with others. 

We host the show to share our passion and educate others about the history of quilting, the art of quilting, and the availability of resources available locally.  The truth is that members of the guild are also inspired by this display.  We’ve seen most of these quilts before in meetings at our show and tell sessions.  But having them hang together for three days gives us a chance to visit, to examine things up close, to ask questions of each other, and to learn.  

Susan’s Sweet Dreams quilt was made with many vintage feedsacks.

It’s a lot of work to put on a show.  Planning has been going on for months.  Members submit entry forms for quilts, members share the tasks of organizing that information, preparing booklets, labels, ballots, ribbons, and a floor layout.  On Thursday, all that comes into play as we “hang the show”.

On Thursday night, members and our guests meet to bask in the beauty with each other.  We examine the quilts and cast our votes in several categories.  “Quilters’ Choice” ribbons are awarded by our ribbon queen Tess at our members’ reception. 

During the show, we love visiting with our guests.  Some visitors are not quilters, but friends of quilters, or folks who are interested in every art form they can find.  Answering their questions gives us a new perspective on what we do…seeing our work through the eyes of those who might not be quilters puts a new spin on things. Other visitors are quilters from other guilds in the area, and I love to chat with them and learn about their quilting and their stitching groups.  In fact, I wrangled invitations to visit a couple of groups soon.  You’ll hear about them in the future.

At the end of the show, more ribbons are awarded (viewers’ choices) along with the winners of our silent auction quilts and our raffle quilt.  More details of some quilts and their makers are in the captions of photos that follow.

Angie’s Roseville Album won many awards: Best Appliqué, Best Bed Quilt, Best of Show, and 1st place Viewers’ Choice.

Pam is telling visitors about her Wind Beneath My Wings quilt which included some vintage barkcloth.
Marie’s Heart Strings portrays an image of her homeplace. I love of Marie’s use of raw edges, hand stitching, and photos on fabric.
Donna’s Italy Dream won 3rd place in the Wall Quilt category.
Yvonne’s quilt, Betty’s Quilt, won Best Hand Quilting. Whole cloth quilts are always loved by viewers.
Starlight, a beauty pieced by Donna, shows Dewey’s astounding longarm quilting. (He’s the same genius who prepares our floor layout.)
One of many scrappy quilts in our show, Kathy’s Selvage Kites features selvages from her stash in the background of the stars.

Is This the Party To Whom I am Speaking? (above) is a bold graphic quilt…but the title comes from the fact that Kathy’s mother is a retired telephone operator. Kathy collected fabrics with images of phones to include in her quilt. The detailed shot at the left shows some of those.

Idaho Square Dance was made by a new quilter. Carol got interested in quilting after making hundreds of facemasks for Covid in 2020. She needed to do something with her scraps. This is one of her first half-dozen quilts. And, she does her own quilting on her home machine.
Heaven’s Home was begun by beloved member Jean and completed by her son and daughter. Duree finished piecing the quilt, son Dewey quilted it on his longarm.
This photo shows many of my sisters as we pose with a group of quilts we made for the Methodist Home for Children. Our show was displayed in their gymnasium.

I had several quilts in the show, won’t bore you with all….but a few with links to their stories are here.

We shared our Challenge quilts from the past four years and my Playhouse in the Chickenyard was fun for many visitors, especially the men who attended. You can read that story here.
My Miss Nellie’s Country Garden sported a Viewers’ Choice ribbon on Saturday afternoon. Her story is here.
I admit that seeing my own quilt hung in the show inspired me…to do more work using linen. The lighting on this shot of Paducah Journey shows how wool batting and linen fabric work together to create glorious texture.

Author: Sandy Gilreath

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.

6 thoughts on “Welcome to Quilt Village”

  1. Thank you so much for sharing. Your quilts are all show worthy. There is a lot of talent in this guild. Loved Donna McDowell’s quilt. My heart was full when I saw Jean’s quilt that was finished by her daughter and son.
    The ladies that provided quilts to the children’s home was very kind and generous.

    Reply

  2. a stunning amount of time and talent on display … kudos to all

    and couldn’t help thinking Idaho Square Dance could easily be renamed Hope for Ukraine

    Reply

  3. Thank you so much for sharing Sandy! Unable to attend this year, I enjoyed seeing the photos of these wonderful quilts along with your insightful comments.
    Always enjoy your beautiful quilts and your blog. Congratulations on the Viewers Choice ribbon for Miss Nellie’s Country Garden!

    Reply

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