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'Art quilts' on display at show Bright colours and creative designs result of members' work
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, July 18, 2013
INUVIK
This is no patchwork demonstration of sewing prowess.
The Inuvik Quilting Guild opened its latest annual exhibition July 7 at the Inuvik Community Greenhouse featuring the work of its members including Bev Garven, back row, left, Sharon Parker, Marilyn McKenna, and Andrea Brown with Candice Morgan, front row, left, Marci Abrams, Caroline Alain (kneeling) and Shona Barbour. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
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Well, actually it is. The seventh annual exhibition by the Inuvik Quilting Guild opened at the Inuvik Greenhouse on July 7.
Guild chair Shona Barbour said it's a testament to the popularity of the time-honoured craft, and possibly the legacy of the long, long winter nights.
"For sure, lots of people say it's a good way to put in some time in the winter and the bright colours keep us energized," Barbour said with a smile. "We have a really good group of women in Inuvik who are quilting right and our guild is getting lots of attention."
She gestured at the quilts on display, saying most of them are "art quilts." That means they're not really intended to be functional, per se. Instead, most are miniatures and a reflection of the creativity of the individual quilters.
"They're not meant to be used on a bed or put through a washing machine, so you can get away with a lot more different techniques you might not normally use.
"Lots of them are art quilts or smaller projects. What we do is, in January, we tell everybody what the project is going to be. This year, we had them pick paint chips from the hardware store and base their quilts on those colours. They were given to July 3 to finish, and some of us were still working on them on that day."
Barbour said the appeal of quilting likely lies in the combining of colours and graphic design.
"You can make something that is useful and can be shared with your friends and family."
That meant the feverish humming of sewing machines, since there's only one member, Sharon Parker, who still knows how to do the traditional hand-quilting.
Most members, Barbour said, have taken up the craft in the last 10 to 15 years and have had no exposure to doing things by hand.
"I'm a real quilter," she acknowledged with a laugh. "But I use the gadgets now too."
"The quilting guild started in 2006," Barbour explained. "Some of us just got together and started quilting regularly. Then we became a registered society. We usually have 25 to 40 members a year.
"It's funny because we had one of our smaller memberships this year with 25 people, but it's the most participants ever in the quilt show."
Fourteen members entered quilts, Barbour said.
"Most are local, but we have my mom who participates every year from Alberta," she said. "And we have two quilters from Yellowknife who enter every year. They're also people who come up and teach every year."
The show will run until the Labour Day weekend and it usually attracts hundreds of people.
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