The pull of spring feels like a kite on a string. The colours and warmth dance and run together, pell mell, and fill us with a pure and simple joy.
The Prince George Quilters' Guild has lofted their creations into a festival of fabric fun and they bid us to Fly Into Spring together.
The quilters are busy all year round. They are constantly working together to stitch new life into this traditional and functional art form. The group teaches and inspires each other, as members, and they also contribute their skills to a number of local charities.
Every so often they will apply their membership's considerable force to a major exhibition, and this is one of those years.
"We had one in 2016, and it was our first in 12 or 13 years. This is our first since then," said Barb Friesen, a longtime member of the guild. "It's a major undertaking. It takes everybody helping out and it's all volunteer. As it is we run three volunteer events per month, which is a lot to commit to, and a lot of people will take things home and work on them on their own time, which we really appreciate."
All this work is done to teach the finer points of the old artisan form. Quilting has an almost endless depth of knowledge. It starts off simply by sewing layers of cloth together into a basic blanket, but the array of fabrics, the array of treads, the array of techniques, and the depth of artistic detail is as infinite as the human imagination.
In order to pass on those skills, the members learn from each other, call in expert help, and have fun together with this functional art form. You learn best by doing, so the guild sets goals for helping charities, providing them with the finished quilts.
"We have about 120 members right now," said president Theresa Smedley. "It has really expanded in the past few years. There was always a strong interest in quilting, but it seems like in the last few years people have really latched onto it. A lot of communication is going on between quilters and the guild really tries to be an interchange for that knowledge. It's like a sisterhood where you can be around like-minded people and learn from each other."
The membership is a diverse collection of quilters of all levels from brand new to sewing all the way to master crafters at the professional level. It's the kind of art form that can be a hobby or be a business, and everyone around the table can have fun together regardless of the task.
"I have a thread obsession. To me, thread is like its own art form," said Friesen, gripping the handles of her long-arm sewing machine.
"I'm all about the fabric," said Smedley, stroking a silky bolt of cloth like a pet. "Whatever it is that excites you, you can take it whatever direction you want to go, plain and simple or incredibly complex. We have some in Prince George who are at that master level and it's incredible to see their work."
Holding a quilt extravaganza is hard work for the guild members, but it spotlights those highest level quilters and gives knowledge and encouragement to the ones aspiring to reach whatever their next level might be.
It is also eye candy for the public. Each quilt is a labour of love, and no two quilters ever produce the same quilt even if they are given the same materials and general instructions.
More than 200 quilts will be on display at the upcoming show. They have entitled it Flying Into Spring, with a kite theme, just to give the explosion of colours and fibers one more wow element.
"Some guilds only have their own members in their shows, but we have opened ours up to anybody," said Friesen. "There are at least 10 quilters' groups in town, some of them are interlinked with our guild but not all. I'm a member of a couple of different ones. We go to the ones that focus on our areas of interest, or work on things that fit with our schedule. Everyone likes to share and do volunteer work."
The guild handed out more than 170 charity quilts last year. The Legion, Council of Seniors, Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation, Meals On Wheels, Aboriginal Infant Program, Association Advocating For Women & Children, Victims' Services, and many more recipients have gotten quilts to cover laps, spread over beds, go into hampers, or be prizes for raffles.
Smedley said one patient at Hospice House so cherished the quilt donated to his bed that staff could only clean it when he was sleeping because he wouldn't let it go.
The compelling art form will Fly Into Spring at the Prince George Golf & Curling Club on May 10 and 11.
In addition to the quilts on exhibit, guild members were issued a challenge to create quilted kites, to add visual fun throughout the display area. It's a challenge the PGQG passed with flying colours.
