Friday, September 21, and Saturday, September 22
Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, 2815 West Locust Street, Davenport IA
Beautiful, hand-made, and functional works of art will be both celebrated and sold when the Mississippi Valley Quilters Guild hosts its 2018 Great River Quilt Show at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, the September 21 and 22 weekend event boasting demonstrations, auctions, appraisals, and raffles, with more than 400 locally crafted quilts on display.
First organized in 1983, the Mississippi Valley Quilters Guild was established, according to its Web-site mission statement, “to educate and encourage members in the quilting arts; encourage high standards in color, design, and construction of the quilted medium; and to stimulate interest in quilting in the community.” The group meets for projects and presentations on the first Tuesday of the month at Moline's First Congregational Church, and the Great River Quilt Show is the organziation's signature public event, with this year's featuring more than 20 quilting vendors both local and from states including Missouri and Wisconsin. A Merchandise Mall will be open in the fairgrounds' Fair Center Building with small-quilt auctions held at 2 p.m. on Friday and 1 p.m. on Saturday, and the Second Hand Treasures station will house donated quilt magazines, books, fabric, patterns, tools, thread, and quilt blocks and tops available at greatly reduced prices.
Quilt historian Catherine Noll Litwinow will be offering bed-turning presentations at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday. A mini-quilt-history program in which vintage and newer quilts are layered on top of one another, bed turning finds the story of the top quilt's origin detailed by a speaker, and after the tale is told, the quilt is folded back to reveal the next quilt and another story; the process continues, along with the stories, until all of the quilt histories have been shared. There will also be Guild-member demonstrations on the cutting of fabric, the stitching of seams, pressing, and pining, with this year's MVQC Featured Quilters being Donna and Garry Lanman, the co-heads of the Guild's charity-projects committee that swes quilts for nearly a dozen local charities
The 2018 Great River Quilt Show at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on September 21 and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on September 22, with admission $7 for one day, $10 for a two-day pass, and ages 10 and under free. For more information on this and other Mississippi Valley Quilters Guild activities and events, call (563)381-3605 or visit MVQG.org.
