QuiltFest: Opening Day!

At last everything is ready and the show can begin!
QuiltFest is unique because there are seven quilt guilds working together to host the show.
The best "perk" is having the raffle quilts on display so tickets may be sold!
After carefully inquiring at each guild table, and finding that no one was actually in the Witness Relocation Program, I was able to take the following pictures:

This is Honeybee Quilters with their very bright & black quilt. Sock Monkey is helping them promote their annual retreat.



The St. Augustine Piecemakers have gone autumn colored this year with a nice curvy design. Their banner shows the famous light house in the oldest city in America, which also has a great quilt shop (Margrieta's). Check out that third place ribbin!

Coastal Quilters won second place with a lovely applique quilt...yes, it is possible to get an award-winning quilt for a $1 ticket!

Friendship Quilters is one of the two day-time guilds in the area. I really regret that this photo does not do justice to yet another in a long line of wonderful raffle quilts they've made!

First Coast Quilters have a beautifully restful blues & greens quilt...the border really looks like water!

River City Piecemakers must have fun sewing all these crazy houses! It's great to have a raffle quilt that lots of members can participate in making.


All Star Quilters....where everyone can shine! Yes, it's my guild, and the quilt has an Honorable Mention. We were very excited to have 35 members work on this quilt!

The winning tickets are drawn on Saturday afternoon before the show closes, and we always hope it's a quilter who wins. It's especially fun when the chairperson or somebody else who has "fallen in love" with the quilt gets to take it home.

Oh, yes...we do mail the quilt if the winner is not present or in town!

Here's what you've been waiting for.....The Best of Show:

"Twilight Star Chateau Compass with Birds" made by Jeanie Pollard of St. Augustine. Splendid!

For those who want a small part of the show, there is the Silent Auction for charity. The money raised from these small quilts (over 100 items!) goes to the Morocco Temple Shriners' Burns Transportation Fund to help get children and families to the special hospital. I have a quilt in here that says "OHIO" and features a cardinal. The last bid today was at $30...we'll see if goes higher!

Quilt appraisals are a great service at a show. You can get a verbal appraisal, or an insurance value appraisal. It's fascinating to watch and listen in as the quilts are examined and discussed....but good manners include keeping your hands to yourself, along with your own comments!

You can't take the quilts out of the show, but you can buy one at the Quilt Sale Room! OK, we know it's really a loooooong table...but it's still a sale! Hard working members of the host guilds take turns opening and re-folding quilts all day as shoppers try to pick out one they want. The quilts are stacked by size, as well as a pile for "vintage" items and another for "UFOs"....somewhere in there are my quilts & "block orphange" (unless they have been sold already!)

One last photo here...the vendors! The merchants mall! Call it what you will...you know it is calling you!
Tomorrow I'll try to have a few pictures of my favorite booths, and if I can manage, pictures from my demo. I did one today and will do two tomorrow! And that, dear readers, is another story all together....