Asheville Quilt Show

My friend Grace Howes and I just returned from the Asheville Quilt Show, and I am completely exhausted! It took us four hours to get from Mooresville to Asheville, normally a two-hour trip. Apparently a tractor trailer heading east on I-40, the primary road through the mountains, crashed and spilled its entire lot of lemons and limes all over the interstate. So the interstate was completely closed for most of the day. We had to go on smaller back country roads, over some gravel roads, and up and down big mountains with harrowing hairpin curves, to get to the show. Good thing Grace and I like to talk. We had a lot of time to catch up.

When we finally got there, we had only 50 minutes to see the whole thing. We talked to lots of people who had the same travel experience, some who actually got to see and smell the lemons, and dreamed of lemonade to quench their thirst after sitting in the 90 degree heat without air conditioning (to avoid car overheating). We ran through the show, willy-nilly, trying to take as many photos as possible so we could look at the quilts more later. It was crazy.

The show was very nice, with a lot of quilts from outside the area, from all over the country, even. Several I had seen before at Houston at the International Quilt Festival, and in magazines. The show was held at the North Carolina Arboretum, which is very lovely. It is on my list for a return visit for sure.

“Harbinger’s Hope” took a third place ribbon in the “Other Techniques" category, which included many of the art quilts! I was very pleased to have won this ribbon, especially after seeing the caliber of work of the competition. Definitely a show I will go back to see next year, but with more time to examine and admire, I hope.

The return trip (by a different route, because the interstate was still closed) took three hours. Arrrrgh!