County Fair Quilt

This is the first quilt that I organized for our quilt guild to be quilted at the Alameda County Fair. This was in 1992 I think. Our quilt guild did exhibit quilting for the county fair every year. We usually were given the first week on the fair schedule and another local guild was given the second week.

I volunteered to chair the committee for the fair quilt for several years. I realized early on that often a committee consisted of a committee of one. For this quilt I found a pattern I liked, shopped for the fabric, sewed the blocks together, and passed around a sign up sheet for members to sign up to volunteer to quilt at the fair. Any member who signed up to work on the quilt was given a free admission ticket, and preferred parking behind the building where we quilted.

The first Friday of the fair schedule we set up our quilt frame and began hand quilting. We used a silk thread that I really liked. I had made a quilt design, and marked the blocks and borders beforehand. It was such a delight to work on the fair quilt. There were so many people who came by and stopped to talk to us. They would share their family quilt stories.

There were many men who would stop by and tell us about sitting under the quilt frame while their grandmothers and their friends would quilt. They would often tell us that their grandmother would set up the quilt frame outside somewhere in the shade and the ladies would quilt all day. Lunch would be served. The men often commented that this was their favorite part of the quilting bee! One man said he would sit under the frame. When his grandmother would push the needle down, he would push it back up. He always got in trouble for that he said!

This quilt is completely hand quilted. When I look on the back, I can see all the beautiful quilting. I remember that the day before I was to take the quilt to the fair, I was putting the rows together. I realized I had sewn 24 blocks incorrectly. So I sat all afternoon and evening unsewing the blocks and sewing them together correctly. I did not get to bed until 5:00 a.m. the next morning. I slept for two hours, got up and headed to the fair with the quilt. I stayed all day. I quilted part of the day, but mostly talked to folks the rest of the day.

For each hour a member helped with the quilt, they were given a ticket. At the end of the fair, we placed all the tickets in a container. At the next guild meeting, someone pulled a ticket from the container. The person whose name was on the ticket won the quilt.

For several years I worked on the fair quilts. I never won a quilt, but I always had a good time trying. It was fun to talk to the folks who came by to watch us quilt. They had lots of questions about quilting, but also lots of wonderful stories to share with us. The stories were the most interesting part of it all for me.

Happy Quilting