Visitors to the Chapel Gallery may be in for a bit of a surprise with its latest exhibition. On display at the art gallery are quilts, bags and table runners made by the community-minded Battlefords area quilting guild Rivers’ Edge Quilters. Running until Jan. 8, “Fabrication” features quilted items in traditional and contemporary styles.
Donations to The Lighthouse homeless shelter were accepted in lieu of admission at a reception for the exhibition Nov. 17 — which coincided with the first day of a three-day workshop and trunk show held Nov. 17-19 and hosted by Rivers’ Edge Quilters at the neighbouring Don Ross Centre craft room. During the reception guild-member Heather Hochbaum declared this year’s quilt show “really spectacular.”
Making this year’s Rivers’ Edge Quilters’ biennial display special was due in no small part to Michele Fiolleau, a certified Judy Niemeyer quilting instructor from Mami’s Country Quilts in Duck Lake, said Hochbaum. Fiolleau was on hand at the reception to present the trunk show later in the evening.
This year, Hochbaum said, the guild decided to “go for broke” for the three-day event.
“We decided let’s have a vendor trade show and bring in other people.
“Our guild usually has a show every two years and the Chapel Gallery has been really helpful to us because not too many quilt shows have a gallery to display,” Hochbaum said, gesturing to the brightly lit, large, open space.
Some of the colourful quilted goods on display are for sale, however, according to Hochbaum, many items made by the group were given away to family as gifts or are personal items that hold sentimental value, such as the starburst-shaped quilt that hangs across from the gallery’s entrance, the top of which was hand-stitched by a guild member’s grandmother and later completed by a local group of hand-stitchers.
Hochbaum said visitors of the exhibition who have an interest in quilting can learn more by contacting guild secretary Irene Sack at 306-937-3318. The group meets in the Don Ross craft room most Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.
