Quilt Shows · Quilts

Quilt Show 2025 Springville Art Museum

I like making these little “postcards” with names from the map. The Mesa is that long dark stripe of rock on the lower right side of the photo, moving away from the road. Yes, we took another roadtrip, as mentioned in the last post, where I talked about making dresses to wear to the wedding.

But this post isn’t about the wedding, although it was lovely. It’s about the Springville Art Museum’s Quilt Show for 2025.

I met my friend Lisa at the show, and at my request, she took me first to her award-winning quilt. She pieced the top and quilted it — a stunning beauty of a New York Beauty quilt. I had been a judge at an earlier show, so I was aware of how hard it was to get a ribbon — and she did get one! I’ll post some of the quilts from the quilt show, but first I want to start with a posthumous display of Carol Ford’s quilts, a special exhibit at the museum.

Summer Sampler, by Carol Ford Quilted by Virginia Gore

The Spirit of Alaska (2013)
Made by Carol Ford

Quilted by Virginia Gore

Carol writes: “I spent a lot of time in Alaska, and I love batik fabrics. Everything about this quilt reminds of the color and beauty that I have seen there. This was one of the most difficult quilts that I have made…I think that the quilting truly brought this quilt to life.”

Ice Bear (2017), by Carol Ford. Quilted by Virginia Gore
She writes that she and her daughter went to “Manitoba, Canada to photograph polar bears. We stayed at Churchill Wild Lodge, which is one of the National Georgraphic’s most remote lodges in the world.”

Carol Ford’s My Garden Patch (2014); quilted by Virginia Gore

We turned a corner from the huge room of quilts, and launched into the main quilt show. I loved the dazzle dazzle below of Danielle Adams’ Land That I Love (she quilted it herself):

Mariam Gunderson both made and quilted her Various Blocks in Shades of Blue. That’s quite the border: all the quilt has beautiful stitching.

Christine Ricks made Tessella or Big Tess (2025), and it was quilted by Tamera Ellis. This one really stood out among the more traditional quilts in its gallery.

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2023) was made by Tracie Buys, and quilted by Connie Atkisson. She combined two patterns — houses and children holding hands — to make this quilt. She writes “A neighborhood is a group of many different individuals that are from different cultures and backgrounds, and we should celebrate those differences.”

I wondered if I’d find a temperature quilt. Loriann Fish’s My 50th Year (2025) is a celebration of a half-century of living. Began the first of June 2024, she ended it in May of 2025, with a color key in the lower right corner of the quilt.

A map of the museum layout.

So many beautiful quilts to show, but in this gallery, the Hafen-Dallin gallery, I chose this one:

Squircle Square, by Machelle Preston. Quilted by Konda Luckau.

While I just loved the design of these many squircles, it was the movement of color and value that really sang. Machelle Preston writes “My friend Karlene found a cute rainbow quilt on a modern blog. We both decided to make the quilt. I did my “squircle” squares hand-appliquéd, while she did her squares machine-appliequéd.”

Here’s her friend’s quilt:

Squircle (2024), by Karlene Riggs.
Quilted by Konda Luckau.

Karlene writes:
“I got the idea for this from a QuiltCon quilt I saw online, but which had no pattern. All the “squircle” fabrics were from my dot collection. The backgrounds were mostly solids. I decided to use all the stitches I could from my sewing machines!”

My La Passacaglia (2023) by Jeri Holley. Quilted by Mindy Powell, who did a stunning job on the outside borders.

I knew you’d want to see a close-up of this!

“This quilt was the result of an online class with Brigette Heitland. After putting it all together, I found it looked like a train […with] all the bright colors. This was made by Jeanette Ivie, and titled Modern Train (2024). Quilting by Sharon Rawlings.

Autumn Baskets (2025) by Myrt Gehring; quilted by Carole Liffereth
This has a combination of wool and cotton in the center section (bordered by the blue).

Esther Avila’s My Color Theory (2025). She writes in her title card that “I had lots of solid fabric scraps and sewed them all in strips to make squares, then cut diagonally twice…I love the little stripe of black and white. It gives the right touch.”

Thought you’d like this interplay of modern, traditional (Bee Happy, a Lori Holt design) and my friend Lisa’s masterpiece. That’s combination of quilts is one reason why I like this show. Our show at home tends to group all things alike, as in All the Landscapes, All the Animals, All the Moderns and so on. I prefer the novelty of discovery, which you can only have if there is a change-up.

We went upstairs, where they were having a retrospective of their decades of Spring Salons. All the art was amazing. Click through on this link to read about it. They have a listing of all the art, if you have some time.

The Quilters (2023)
Kathleen Bateman Peterson

This was upstairs, and of course I wanted to bring it home with me.

It reminded me of another painting I’d seen the day before, in the Church History Museum. Titled Sisters, it is by Beth Jepson. In our church we call each other “Sister” and “Brother” (as in Sister Eastmond.) So this painting is about all of us women, working together.

The artist writes: “I love the diversity of sisters, old and young, beginner and expert, working together to create a piece of art that is functional and often gifted in charity.”

I put a few pieces of art up on my Instagram, if you are interested, but you can also head to the website for the Church History Museum to see the rest in this exhibit.

Finally: the Wedding Wrap-up

All these were catered by my daughter, Barbara. Click on the little arrows at the side to advance the show.

  • 1–Desserts table, from the side
  • 2–Crew in the kitchen finishing the last minute prep
  • 2–Macaron tower
  • 3–Cake pops (bride’s colors were sage, tan, black)
  • 4–Key Lime Pie cups
  • 5–Our children and I (I don’t know where my husband was at that point); Father of the Bride is on the right.
  • 6–Father-Daughter dance, which made me weep
  • 7–The happy couple, listening to the speeches

Okay, my dress. Well, about 3 days before the wedding and after I’d sewn three wearable toiles and was about ready to start on a fourth, I got the news that grandparents were supposed to be in solids. Dark solids. Sigh.

So I wore a black skirt and a turquoise jacket, nice and proper and cooperative.

But I changed into the dress below for the reception.

The fabric is Shape Sorter in Blue, by Eloise Renouf of Cloud 9 Fabrics. I purchased the wide back which has a silky feeling to it. This was taken after a couple days of rest, standing in my blue kitchen. A happy backdrop.

May you celebrate your quilting talents, great art, weddings for those you love, dresses that you don’t wear, and arriving home safely after a long ride home–

Sacred Mending, by Paige Crosland Anderson
Dimensions: 48 x 64 x 12 In.
Medium: Acrylic and oil

Title card: Painted quilt patterns with names like “All Hands Around,” “Worlds Without End,” “Straight Furrough,” “Jacob’s Ladder,” and “Winding Ways” fit within this altarpiece. The patterns represent the ways individuals reach—for help, for purpose, and for repair.

Something to Think About

On the Occasion of an Anniversary

DAEESEAnniversary

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love
With apologies to Christopher Marlowe, 1592

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and vallies, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And late at night, we will read together ,
You, your spy thrillers and me, Quiltmaker,
Then join in snoring: a guy and his gal,
Two melodious birds singing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And quilts to cover freezing toes-es,
While nightly you return, a tired fellow
And we join together, eating dinner on the patio.

Still other nights, you slip in ear-buds,
Watching murder mysteries, while the quilting continues;
An if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each August-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

************************

In honor of our anniversary this month, when Dave married me. . .  and my four children.  The reception was held two weeks after our marriage and after our honeymoon to Austria.  My mother and father watched my four children while we honeymooned, then drove the car from Utah to California to meet up with us.  I owe them big time.

Jet-lagged, I went to the florist’s on the afternoon of the reception to pick up my bouquet, but they’d made the wrong one.  I refused to purchase it, and they promised me the right one this time.  I went home and curled my hair, over-curling my bangs so I looked like I was in fourth grade, then went back to the florist’s.  I hated my hair, but I liked the new bouquet.

My husband’s brother took the photos at our reception; we gave him five rolls of film, but only one turned out as he’d loaded them incorrectly in the camera (one of the photos is above).  We had a lovely party with good friends and family, loaded all the gifts in our car, drove home, unloaded them, then stayed up opening gifts, drinking Martinelli’s after getting the three younger children in bed.  At 11:00 p.m. Dave got back in the car to pick up the oldest child from a church dance, remarking as he came home that he bet he was about the only groom that had to pick up a teenager from a dance on the night of his wedding reception.

We laughed, fit ourselves to each other, and twenty-four years later, we are still here. Like the wooing swain in Marlowe’s poem,  I did go with him and become his love, his wife, his partner and his resident quilter and to borrow another poet’s line: that has made all the difference.