Quilts of different shapes, sizes and designs were displayed at the Bella Vida Senior Center on Saturday for the Santa Clarita Valley Quilt Guild’s first-ever SCV Quilt Show, “Where Quilts and Friendships Bloom.”
The show, which is the first of a new tradition that the guild hopes to continue once every two years, consisted of an “opportunity quilt” to raffle, raffle baskets, a boutique of various items made of fabric, local vendors, and the star of the show: over 100 quilts created by the guild, for at least a year, and curated.
Coats made from quilting fabric by novices were displayed; beginners’ classes were also held, simultaneously, in machine and hand sewing.
The quilts were not for sale, but for $10 admission, the guild could raise money to fund buying miscellaneous quilting items, in addition to items that are often donated to the guild by the community.
“We make an opportunity quilt once a year, and then we sell raffle tickets. We always pick the raffle ticket in December, and that’s where we make a lot of our money to buy our batting and spray starch,” said Marcia Dains, president of the guild. “All of our fabric is donated from members of the community, maybe somebody who has moved, has unfortunately passed away, and they want it to go to a really good home.”
Part of what makes the guild a good home for the fabric is how it’s used for community service projects. While this is the first year the show was held at Bella Vida, the guild will continue making 450 place mats for the senior center’s Meals on Wheels initiative at the end of the year, according to Dains.
“The best thing, I think, is that we do community service outreach, and there are eight different organizations specifically this year that we’ve been working with — they are the stars of our community service program. We call them our ‘stellas,’ which means ‘star’ in Italian,” Dains said. “A representative from each organization walked around and chose a quilt to represent their organization.”
Not only did a member from each organization choose a quilt that resonated most with their values and marked it with a ribbon, but the guild also had a judge from the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges choose their best quilts that were on display.
“The judge had trained for five years to become a certified judge. She came in on Wednesday, and went through all the different categories, and based on that, gave her expert opinion on what should be first, second, third and an honorable mention,” Dains said. “So that was a new thing for us, and it was a very educational and really positive event. We hung the ribbons [before the event].”
The committee chair for the event, Kathleen Dolan, described Bella Vida as a “dream location” to host the show.
“We met one Saturday a month since March, and in our committee we had one person who works for vendors, one person who worked with the boutique, somebody who worked with the volunteer schedule, somebody who designed a floor plan to lay the quilt frame,” Dolan said. “The location fits us to a T. We have enough space, we have a beautiful facility and wonderful people. We’re hoping that next time, in two years, we will have a two-day show on Saturday and Sunday.”
