CANMORE – With its humble beginnings as a show and tell tea party, the Mountain Cabin Quilters Guild will be hosting another Festival of Quilts from Sept. 28-29.
Being held at the Canmore Seniors Centre, the public is invited to join the guild members for a weekend of fine arts and a variety of other crafts.
The event started as a small show and tell tea party, but evolved into the two-day festival as the guild also grew from 20 members to about 80 members today.
“You could be cheesy and say it’s the threads that bind us,” said festival coordinator Wendy Williams with a laugh.
Occurring once every two years, the Festival of Quilts displays a variety of quilts from members of the Bow Valley. But this time around, the festival will also be displaying other fine arts from its guild members.
“We’ve got art quilts, but we’ve got different members who offer different types of things. Some people knit, so we put their knitting in ... Anybody who does anything within the fine craft industry,” Williams said.
Along with their quilts, Mary Wahl doll maker and embroiderer, as well as mixed media silk painter Dana Roman, will also be displaying their own unique works at the festival.
A little known fact, said Williams, is that the Mountain Cabin Quilters Guild contributes a lot of volunteer work throughout the community.
With its HUGS program, the guild provides quilts for cancer patients at the Canmore General Hospital. Before a patient enters their chemotherapy session, the patient chooses a quilt to accompany them throughout their treatments.
Then there’s the work that individual guild members do for alzheimer's patients at the Golden Eagle Extended Care, Origin at Spring Creek and Banff Mineral Hospital creating touch quilts.
“Alzheimer people like to keep moving their hands, so we’ll make quilts with pockets and ties in them and they’re small and they’re on their lap, so they have something to fidget with,” Williams said.
Furthermore, the guild works with Meals on Wheels every Christmas to create place mats, as well as making carrying bags filled with toiletries for those who stay at the YWCA Banff women’s shelter.
“What we do is an expression of our individuality and creativity and we want to encourage young people and anybody who hasn’t even started quilting to come, to see the show, to talk the members, to join our guild, to come to the program,” Williams said.
Mountain Cabin Quilters Guild’s Festival of Quilts will take place on Sept. 28-29 starting at 10 a.m. at the Canmore Seniors Centre. The weekend will also feature a silent auction, a vendor fare and end with a raffle ticket prize where attendees have a chance to win their own handmade quilt.
