Once Upon a Quilt….Every Quilt Tells a Story was the theme of our triennial quilt show held May 29 and 30 in Sarnia, Ontario. We had 259 quilts on display, each with their own unique story. Members were encouraged to write a story about their quilt and they did not disappoint. We were lucky enough to have the 3 quilts that 3 of our members had in the 2025 CQA quilt show. There is a picture below. We had 9 vendors at the show and 660 visitors. The show was wonderful, but what is more wonderful is how it brings the best out of all of our members. I really want to talk about what happens before and during the show that people may not realize. We had a committee of 24 brainstorming and planning all aspects of the show. This committee started meeting in May 2025. Every role on the team is an important piece to put together a memorable show. They worked tirelessly advertising, recruiting help, searching for props, booking vendors and demos, registering quilts, figuring out where each quilt would go on the racks and plexiglass glass, making centerpieces for the cafe, making items for the boutique and setting it up beautifully, coming up with a show challenge, gathering mini quilts for the draw, hanging the quilts, having white glove volunteers, and the list goes on and on. We have 144 members in our guild and every member contributed in some way. From donating items for the boutique, making bookmarks to hand out at the door, loaning plants and props to decorate the space to emphasize the theme, volunteering to help at the show, providing trucks and ladders and bringing along spouses, children, grandchildren and friends to help with set up and take down and of course entering quilts and challenge blocks and placemats for the placemat challenge. On set up day, we had 78 volunteers working to transform a community hall and an arena into a story book setting. Each day of the show we had over 30 volunteers and 52 on take down day. The show looked wonderful but at the end of the day, it is the people who make the difference and what we do for the community that is important. There were so many smiling faces and we heard more than once from visitors and the vendors that our guild members were so friendly, cheerful, kind and helpful. Our mini quilt draw raised $1100 for for a local charity called Connect, the placemats from the challenge were donated to Meals on Wheels, money raised from selling spots on our signature quilt totalled $780 for Quilts of Valour, challenge blocks will be made into 2 charity quilts. These are the things that give our story a happy ending!
Quilts from CQA 2025 Quilt Show
Quilt Display