LAKEPORT, Calif. – Just a year ago the Falling Leaves Quilt Show almost didn’t have a venue, when the Lake County Fairgrounds became a fire camp.
This year the fires are out and the Ladies of the Lake Quilt Guild is in final preparation mode for the show’s opening day on Oct. 1.
The Falling Leaves Quilt Show, which draws hundreds of quilt-loving guests from all over northern California, will take place at the Lake County Fairgrounds at 401 Martin St., in Lakeport.
Show hours are Oct. 1, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Oct. 2, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information contact show Linda Morrison at 707-263-4504 or visit the Web site, www.LLQG.org .
The show will feature nearly 200 quilts, some only a few inches across and others made to fit a king-size bed, executed in a variety of techniques and in all colors of the spectrum.
Guests will find an array of styles from traditional to modern to innovative. Imagine strolling through aisles and aisles teeming with works of art that can fill a wall – that’s what a quilt show is. Quilts have come a long way from being just bedcovers and are now recognized as art.
Each year the quilt show committee selects one noted quilter for special recognition. This year’s featured quilter is Tami Benevedes-Graeber, a “local girl who made good” showing off her work in her old hometown.
Benevedes-Graeber is a fourth generation quilter who grew up in Lakeport and still has family ties here. In 2005, after retiring from a career in nursing, she discovered free-motion machine quilting and unleashed her imagination, producing fifteen quilts in her first year alone.
Her work has won numerous national and two international awards. Guests who wish to talk with can visit her in the featured quilter location and she will be speaking about how she went from entering the Lake County Fair to entering prominent national shows.
Quilt guild members wearing hostess ribbons or white gloves will circulate through the show to answer questions and help guests. Please feel free to ask them for help.
“Cross and Crown” the 2016 opportunity quilt will be on display and tickets will be on sale. Seven members of the LLQG made from Civil War-era reproduction fabrics in using a pattern by Jill Shaul of Yellow Creek Designs.
The Falling Leaves Quilt Show has more ways to entertain its guests.
The Country Store Boutique is a great place to find recycled quilting, sewing and craft items and one-of-a-kind country collectibles. Other attractions are gift baskets featuring themes like yarns and crafts, Christmas, birds, games, babies, gardening, sewing, coffee and tea, quilting, and Lake County treasures.
In the silent auction corner guests can bid on a variety of tempting items including fabric kits, quilt kits, several sewing machines and a quilting frame. Guests can enter their names for a door prize drawing and can vote for their favorite quilt.
For those eager to improve their quilting skills, the demonstration booth will offer presentations on prairie points, mitered corners and strip paper piecing.
In the vendor mall, 12 vendors will show off fabric, sewing machines, patterns, notions and all manner of things that interest quilters. La Penquita Mexican restaurant will cater lunch Saturday and Sunday in Barty’s Café in the fairgrounds.
The winners of the opportunity quilt, the door prize, the theme baskets, the silent auction items and the Viewers’ Choice award will be announced on Sunday afternoon.
Guests will note ribbons on many quilts in the show. Quilters who enter the Falling Leaves show can choose to have their quilts judged by professional quilt judges so they can get helpful criticism. Those judges award ribbons based on standard judging criteria.
The show also has five non-professional judges, local VIPs who have no expertise in quilting, they just know what they like and they award ribbons to the quilts that they would like to take home.
This year’s VIP judges are Brock Falkenberg, Lake County’s superintendent of schools; Rick Davis of Davis Tire, Marci McDaniel-Davis of Chatoff Properties and Davis Tire; Dave Faries of the Lake County Record-Bee; and Clinton Karp of Pet Country.
This diverse group will have an advance look at the show as they make their selections. Watch for the VIP ribbons on their favorites.
Shelley Aldrich founded the Falling Leaves Quilt Show in 2002, and beginning this year, Aldrich will present the Founder’s Award to the quilt of her choice.
Membership in the Ladies of the Lake Quilt Guild is open to anyone interested in quilting, regardless of skill level.
The purpose of the guild is to promote and encourage quilting and to perform community service through quilt making. Each year quilt guild members make and donate baby quilts to the birth center at St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake and doll quilts to Toys for Tots.