This weekend, we managed to attend four quilt shows in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The quilts were wonderful, all one of a kind and very inspired. I was very happy to meet some quilters with whom I have had correspondence in the past, or who have been regular followers of my columns in The Quilter magazine. I certainly don’t think of myself as a “celebrity,” as one gal stated, but it is really nice to encounter folks with the same interests in quilt history as I.
So much work goes into putting up a quilt show, and taking it down. If one could do a fast footage of vendors and others setting up, one could better appreciate the process. Yet, during the show, the vendors serenely sit there and smile, ready to take your money, should you want something, as if it had been no trouble at all to lug all that stuff in and set up.
I bought a pattern. I like to design my own quilts lately, but I just really liked the simplicity and the sentiment of a quilt hanging in a vendor’s booth. I shall have fun making this large wall quilt, and hope to start on it soon.
Antique quilts were not seen in abundance at any of the shows, but I did see one, from the 1930s, a combination of cross-stitch and piecework. Oh yes, another show had a multi-generational quilt worked in varying shades of blue, in cross stitch.
I’d just like to impart my hearty congratulations to all of the organizers, quilters, and vendors who make the shows possible. It was very pleasant to spend time with other quilters where the only language is: “Quilts Spoken Here.”
Patricia Cummings
