A Visit to the 2024 Quilt Show

Last weekend was the Minnesota Quilters Quilt Show in Duluth, MN, and I journeyed up there with some of my family to take it in.  Once again, my guild put on a fabulous exhibit in the non-judged section and I was lucky enough to have two quilts included this time around.  Last year, the theme was Whisper Quilts and this year it was "What is a Modern Quilt?"

Mother even got the place of honor right next to the sign explaining the exhibit!  As I finished Mother, I felt it was more of a display quilt than an everyday quilt, so I was thrilled to see it hanging at a show.  

Each of the quilt cards had the artist statement that I wrote followed by an explanation written by the guild of what made the quilt modern.  The card on Mother had a mistake - the quilt design is by Tara Lee Quiltery.  The teardrop idea and themes are all hers, I just redesigned some of the interiors to suit myself.  I credited her when I submitted the design, but I wasn't asked to proof the card prior to display so I was unaware of the error.

My second quilt was entered as more of a last-minute whim: my Garden Stars quilt that was made using my Chalk Stars pattern!  I don't make a lot of floral quilts, but this one is a particular favorite of mine and it's normally displayed on the quilt ladder in my bedroom.

In addition to having my own quilts hanging at the show, I was attending as a faculty member!  Earlier this year, I participated in a panel during a guild meeting where I talked about my quilt design process.  The director of this quilt show is a member of the guild as well and asked us to reprise our discussion for a Saturday morning lecture at the quilt show.  I enjoy public speaking and can talk about quilts all day long if you let me so this was a dream come true for me.  But before I could participate in the lecture, there was a surprise: all faculty members got to award a ribbon.  This was a very hard decision; all of the quilts were so lovely.  It ended up coming down to three quilts.  First, a whimsical mini quilt that was so cute.

Next, an optical illusion quilt made with beautiful grunge fabrics.

But the ultimate winner of my ribbon was this sweet cardinal quilt.  Cardinals were my grandma's favorite bird and I have a soft spot for them.

Then it was time to leave the show floor and get ready for the quilt lecture.  In addition to prepping my speech, I was also preparing to vend.  I created print copies of Zephyr, Windsuit, and Bernie's Mittens and my son 3D printed a very nice holder to display them in my vending area.

The print patterns will be up for sale in my pattern shop soon - you can join my mailing list to be one of the first to know when they are available! UPDATE: They're here!

Here's my practice run of everything I brought along.  I didn't know how big of a space I would have to vend so I didn't want to bring too much along, but I wanted to show everything off!  And here's my dream team at the final booth.  My mother-in-law was in charge of vending (and made the Zephyr in the photo) and my son helped with the AV set-up and tear-down.

The panel itself went great as well.  I was speaking with Jill from Materiella and Kate from Due North Handmade, two other Minnesota pattern designers.  All of us have different backgrounds and different styles so I learned some things too!

And that wraps up my trip to the 2024 MN Quilters quilt show!  Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to enter something into the judged category.