The Wild Rivers Quilt Show

Last week Friday morning I packed the car and headed to Iron Mountain, Michigan for the Wild Rivers guild show entitled: “Quilting in My Life” – and a wonderful show it was!

I love to teach, but I always say that the packing and the “schlepping” is getting a bit harder with time. This time I “only” needed 4 suitcases and 3 tote bags!

The drive up was lovely. I think the trees were almost at their peak.

And many of the buildings in town had beautiful murals. The man on the ladder in the last one is part of the painting – so clever!

When I arrived at the middle school they were beginning to set up the quilt racks. I was so honored to be given a long wall for my quilts, and it was the first thing attendees saw when they entered the show. In this photo I’d just hung them, with help from Hilda (thanks Hilda!), and was about to put up the signage. It made me smile when I realized there was a ladder at the end of my wall too. This exhibit is part of the reason why I had so many suitcases 😁.

The guild members and their helpers worked hard all evening to set everything up ~ and it looked great for the start of the show! Here’s just a sampling:

I met Barb while the show was going up and asked her about this quilt. She hand stitched the entire quilt using the English paper piecing method. Beautiful!

I talked to Rose about her quilt “Six Sided Wonder” during the show. It’s all hand stitched and includes pieces of vintage linens.

I found 3 embroidered hexies cut from vintage pieces in this portion alone. Can you?

“Omigosh!” by Anita Berry is really scrappy ~ and I thought it was so interesting that the border squares were far more intricate than the center of the quilt. I understand it was time consuming, but I’m thinking those blocks were a bit challenging too ☺️.

Isn’t Laurie Frieberg’s quilt “Fox in a Box” delightful? She made it for her first grandchild.

Cozy Camp Nights by Jodi Peterson is a “rag quilt”. It’s named that because the raw edges of the seam allowances are showing on the top of the quilt. Jodi did an amazing job of “fluffing” up her seam allowances:

Here’s a close up:

Mayan Mirage by Jackqueline Lehto was striking.

As I was looking at the quilts I discovered I’d photographed quite a few by Jackie. Her stories are as charming as her quilts. Here’s another:

I also noticed that many of the quilts that weren’t hers had been quilted my her. It was such a joy to get to meet her! What a talented quilter she is! Jackie was also teaching at the show, and she had quite a few quilts in the bed turning. It “turns” out she has made a different quilt to use on her bed each month!!! Here’s just one of them. She puts a lot of herself into the designing of her work. Just look at the machine stitched redwork, and the sweet outer edge.

Not only did I have the chance to present my “Quilt Tales” lecture and “Fall Into Repliqué” class at the show,

but I was able to take a class too. I’ve seen Laurie Landree’s award winning work many times over the years and I’ve wanted to learn about her technique for making faces. It was a fun class. Here are a few of her quilts:

And here’s a photo of her with one of her more recent pieces at the Madison show:

She provides many original line drawings of facial features in her pattern and the students create their own character with fusing. It was fun to choose the features and fabrics for my whimsical lady, and here’s my wip (work in progress):

One of the other talented quilters I met was Melanie Roath. She had some of her quilts hung together in the show,

After admiring them I learned she has also written a children’s book about quilts. She and her granddaughter are part of a story about quilt blocks and the animals in their names. It was illustrated by her daughter,

and I was tickled to be there for her book reading.

There were so many fun aspects to this delightful show. I wish I could have shown you all the quilts and introduced you to the other wonderful quilters I was privileged to meet, but space only permits me to tell you about one more friend of mine.

In closing, I need to introduce you to Laurie Cwerenz. She is the dear quilter who invited me to be a part of the show. She and her team were very well organized and did a wonderful job. She also narrated the bed turning and here we are with a special memorial quilt she’d made for a family member.

Thanks so much Laurie, and all of the members of the Wild Rivers Guild, for a wonderful weekend in Michigan!