Friday's quilt show kicks off Coast Guard Festival

Thu, Jul 24, 2008    to del.icio.us

The 2008 Coast Guard Festival will kick off Friday and Saturday with the Lighthouse Quilt Guild show.

The quilt show will be held at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, 901 Columbus Ave., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days,

The guild consists of 160 members from Grand Haven, Spring Lake, West Olive, Allendale, Holland, Fennville and Muskegon.

"We have award-winning quilters from all over West Michigan, and usually have over 170 quilts on display," said guild member Julie Blakely.

The show this year will include the Paintbox Challenge. Twenty-three quilters participated in the challenge and each was given a paper bag with a few pieces of fabric from another unidentified quilter. Participants then added their own designs and fabric to the unidentified pieces make a quilt.

The Paintbox Challenge quilts will be on display and will be judged by the public.

Antique bed turning is another event that will be featured at the show. Several times throughout the show, quilters will pile up quilts on an antique bed, pull them off one by one and tell the stories behind them.

Food vendors and quilt vendors, along with the Lighthouse Quilt Guild boutique, will be at the event.

Last year, the quilt show brought in more than 700 people for the event.

Jan Kinane joined the Lighthouse Quilt Guild over three years ago, right after she moved to Grand Haven from San Diego, Calif.

"I'd never joined an actual quilt guild before," she said. "I joined so I could meet new people from the area who have the same interests as I do. Lighthouse Quilt Guild is a really nice group of women of all ages and we do a lot of things for the community."

The Lighthouse Quilt Guild donates a new quilt to every Habitat for Humanity family and quilts baby blankets to donate to local shelters.

Kinane said the guild is starting a new project called Quilts of Valor, in which they will donate quilts to hospitals with wounded veterans.

On the Net:

https://lighthousequilters.org