20 Years of Quilty Memories

The current exhibit of the Prairie Arts Council features work of the Carnegie Quilters, a group that meets weekly at the Carnegie Center. The show runs until August 16 and starting next week the hours are 1:00 to 3:00. (This week they are something like 10:00 to 2:00.) The opening reception for the exhibit is tomorrow (Friday, July 12) from 6:00 pm until 7:30 pm.

 A simple quilt that caught my eye was this one made of tee shirts from the various shows of the Carnegie Players. The Carnegie Players will be presenting The King and I on August 8-10. The other big theatrical production of the summer is the Fendig Children's Theater show of Singin' in the Rain, which starts tonight and will continue on Friday, overlapping the end of the reception for the quilt show.

 More elaborate was this black and white quilt made of squares that had a quarter circle cut from them. On each quilt there was information about who pieced the quilt and who quilted it. The person who pieced it arranged the pieces and sewed them together. The same design of squares could be arranged in other ways, as it is on the two quilts on the ends. The quilter sews the whole quilt together, binding the back, front, and the fill.

 The quilt below will be sold by auction or raffle to raise money for the Prairie Arts Center.

 Any quilt with tessellations will catch my attention.

 The square for this has a corner cut off and moved to the other side. Can you see how simple the basic unit is? The quilting is very clear on this picture. It is the round stitching. Often the piecing and the quilting are done by different people. I asked who then owns the quilt. It is usually the piecer, who pays the quilter.

 My favorite quilt was not one with tessellations, but the one below. A friend of Arlene, my guide for this show, was a nurse who went on a medical mission to Panama years ago. The women in the area sewed elaborate panels that they included in their dresses. The nurse purchased some of these panels, and Arlene pieced them together to make this quilt. The challenge was that the pieces each had different dimensions.

 Below is a close-up of the quilt. The quality of the sewing in these pieces is amazing. This one quilt alone makes a visit to this show worthwhile.

There are a lot of quilts in the show and anyone who appreciates the effort needed to make them will enjoy the show.

A few more of the quilts are shown on the Facebook page of the Prairie Arts Center here, here, and here.