Kenan Quilters Guild sets biennial quilt show this weekend [The Buffalo News, N.Y.]

It's a lot of work to put the show on, co-chairperson Jan Jordan said. But that's not the main reason it's not held every year.

"I think if you had it every year, you wouldn't have such a good amount of quilts," she said.

The displays will include about 220 quilts made by Guild members, plus another 40 from a traveling collection put together by Hoffman Fabrics, a prominent maker of quilting supplies.

Gretchen Lang of Lockport was chosen as this year's featured quilter. She said she has made no fewer than 45 items that will be displayed at the show.

"I guess I'm addicted to quilting," Lang said. "I quilt because I'm just in love with quilting. I make a tremendous amount of charity quilts ... It's just the neatest thing to get some fabric and sew it together and give it to someone."

For the show, she temporarily took back quilts she made for her married sons so she could display them. One is a "wedding ring quilt" that took her three years to make.

"It was a love quilt. I fell in love making it," Lang said.

Jordan said most of the quilts on display will not be for sale, although individual quilters have the option to sell them.

However, a boutique is being set up "where anyone in the Guild can offer for sale some things they didn't put in the show."

Any member of the public as well as the Guild was allowed to submit a quilt for the show. "We didn't select them. It's not up to us to judge," Jordan said.

There won't be any prizes for the quilters, either. But for the first time ever, representatives of about 10 community groups will be brought in to choose their favorites, and those designations will be posted, Jordan said.

Although a traditional-sized quilt is about the size of a queen-size mattress, Jordan said in recent years, quilters have been favoring smaller quilts that are meant to be hung on walls.

"You see your finished results a lot sooner," she said. "We used to do a lot more hand quilting. That takes so long, most people today do it by machine."

Among the featured events at the show are a Chinese auction for wall hangings, purses and baskets of quilting supplies, and quilt appraisals by a certified appraiser, Linda Hunter.

Jordan said people may bring quilts from home for Hunter to examine. "She will appraise it for a fee and give them a report they can have for insurance purposes," Jordan said.

The show in the arena, 195 Beattie Ave., runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Admission is $5. Proceeds are donated by the Guild back to the Kenan Center after the show's expenses are covered, Jordan said.

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