My ENLIGHTENED Quilt Show adventure

I am a member of Quilters Anonymous quilt guild with around 450 members attending from all across the Puget Sound area of Washington State. One of the many benefits of belonging to this wonderful group is our annual Quilt Show. We celebrated our 42nd Quilt Show in March of 2024. After spending every day at the show in March, I traveled to Kentucky to attend the 2024 AQS Paducah Show, and the following are my thoughts of the experience.

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     Today is April 19 and since the first of March I have been busy working on multiple unrelated projects, of which my favorite was the Quilters Anonymous (QA) Quilt Show. I love quilt shows, everything about them, the atmosphere, the people, the vendors, but most of all I love quilts. I love to explore every aspect of these perfectly executed pieces of artistically placed fabrics and the details of every stitch in the quilting design. So now I am off to Paducah to witness in person the extremely detailed, overly complex, often elaborately executed competition quilts. These are the kind of quilts I’ll happily fly across the county just to see in person. 

     Two years ago, I went to Paducah with my Horse Person sister, and she came home from the show as a Fellow Quilter sister with a high-end Pfaff, a couple of kits and a vision. She fell in love with the Art Quilt exhibit we saw at the Museum and her future was set. Within months she had a Cutie Frame and purchased another machine for the frame. By the time I arrived to see her new studio at her home outside of Louisville, she had a long arm, a new Janome M8, and was teaching at local quilt shops. The family bug finally caught her, and she is now following the footsteps of her mother (June) and sister. And now–we were off to Paducah, towing a trailer packed with all our stuff and ready for a week of quilts and classes. 

     Tuesday, Day 1, we attended the Awards Banquet, while exciting, pictures on a big screen didn’t give the quilts justice. So off to the Sneak Peak we went to look at the winners in person. I walked into the middle of the hanging quilts and just stopped and looked around.  The site before me was not what I expected and immediately I was transformed, in vision, back a few weeks to the QA Quilt Show I had volunteered to work at. 

It was Thursday afternoon, my team and I arrived to setup for the Preview Party.  I walked down the main aisle to the middle of the hanging quilts.  I stopped and as I looked around my breath was taken away at the overall beauty before me.  A bright open space full of textured color as far as I could see in any direction.

     Waking back to the reality of the moment, I proceeded into the show feeling a bit disappointed in the atmosphere, it was a bit dingy and cluttered feeling, not a very inviting atmosphere.  However, I was ready to enjoy my pre-crowded, micro-vision opportunity of each winning quilt.   Soon I discovered that because of layout, it was difficult to actually get close enough to most quilts to see the details.  Despite this, the quilts were fantastic, especially the top winners. I have many pictures of the outstanding quilting and piecing details on the quilts, thanks to the zoom feature on my phone. 

     Over the next couple of days, as I looked at the quilts, I would mentally reflect back on our QA show and compare our talented members. My opinion regarding our 2024 show?  The team put together an event that was very competitive. We have an amazing amount of talent in our guild, not only as outstanding quilters, but also the resources capable of putting on a world class event. 

     What makes my opinion credible, you wonder? Well, I worked every day as a hostess at our show.  I walked the quilts and viewed them for hours, talked to many people, answering their questions about the quilt they were exploring. I asked them what they liked about the quilt they were looking at. I spent three hours one afternoon studying each one in detail with my husband. And I fully appreciate the skill it takes to make a perfectly executed, yet so uniquely diverse work of fabric and thread art that makes today’s quilts. 

     And then the “Me and Sister” time was over.  During those 11 travel hours home, relaxing in my seat, sipping a glass of wine, my thoughts were once again back in Monroe and the QA show. My final thoughts–I really didn’t need to fly all that distance to see a great quilt show. But, in person is so much better than a picture so I decided that I am sure a lucky person to have had two outstanding opportunities to get my creative juices flowing again.