Quilt Show

Yesterday afternoon Shirley C and I were busy setting up a quilt show in the town library. The quilting group that meets in the rural church, led by Shirley, is celebrating 15 years of getting together to sew. I'm a member of that group, and Shirley and I are both on the board of Arts Alive, a society dedicated to promoting local artists and artisans. So we were doing double duty, as representatives of "Shirl's Girls" and board members of the society hosting these "Art on Display" events.

We were unfortunate in two ways: the article announcing the open house to begin this exhibit was not published in the local paper until the day of the exhibit, and many rural people did not receive the paper until today, Friday. So I had made a few posters to put up around town this week in hope of spreading the word. We also told as many people as we could contact personally about the open house last night.

And secondly, when we went to put up the display, Shirley and I found that we were the only ones who had brought quilts in for the display. She was a bit depressed about that, but I cheered her up by saying that between the two of us, we had enough nice quilts and quilted things to make it a good display. And that's how it turned out. We made the bulk of the display, but two other women in our group later brought a few quilts, and Shirley took along some of her daughter's quilting as well.

Here are some of the quilts that we showed in the meeting room. Counter-clockwise from the upper right are one of Shirley's full bed-size quilts in white and blue, on the table a blue, white and yellow table center of hers, and her darling teddy bear album quilt, partially covered by a wall hanging of mine for which I simply cut flannel scraps and made 9, 12 and 36 patch blocks, using an inner and outer border to tame the busyness of it.

Shirley's two daughters both quilt and she had on display three very clever cloth books that her older daughter had made. They are full of detail and secret compartments. The pink you see is a tent. Open the zipper on the tent and find a cute little teddy bear taking a nap.

Shirley's younger daughter was the one who took the pictures you see here, since yours truly forgot to take a camera along.

I think there were about 20 people who came and viewed the exhibit. It was a fun time and they did admire the work displayed. Some of the work was hand quilted, some machine quilted, some pieced, some whole cloth.

Here you see two local quilters checking out the quilts displayed on my very handy clothes drying rack, which has often doubled as a quilt display. The very top quilt on that rack is a "Turning Twenty" by Linda, who follows this blog, and what you can't see is a darling quilt she made for her newest granddaughter. The rest of the quilts on the rack are mine, included the quilted bag. I'm wearing my self designed dress with red hearts appliqued on the bodice (back and front).

So in spite of our disappointments, it was a good evening. The library staff are very enthusiastic about this display, and love having the quilts around. They've been very supportive and helpful, and we think it's a winning idea for both the Library and for Arts Alive.

The Annual Quilt Show at Calgary's Heritage Park is on this weekend Saturday and Sunday. This is a huge quilt show with quilts in many buildings on the grounds, and also on display in large tents in the grassy areas. It's too bad the weather is so miserable: while the rest of the country gasps in unseasonable, even record-breaking hot weather, we are under gloomy skies with rain and a current temperature of +3ºC, or about +36ºF. Yesterday there was heavy snow in the towns just south of Calgary, with snow forecast for Calgary. In ironic contrast the cities in Northern Alberta are nice and warm today.

Oh well, we're scheduled for good weather toward the end of this coming week. We'll just look forward to that!