Valley Quilt Guild hosts 30th annual show this weekend in Yuba City

Quilts illustrating "Where Modern Meets Tradition" will greet visitors at this weekend's 30th annual show hosted by the Valley Quilt Guild in Yuba City on March 16-17, 2013.

This year's show features quilters Beryl Burtis, Sharon Easter, Ruenell Givans and Alyce Kauffman, four of the original 34 charter members who established the guild in 1982.

Featuring more than 250 quilts, from larger than king-size bedspreads to small wall hangings, plus 25 vendors selling a variety of goods from fabrics to magazines and quilting machines, the two-day show starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds' main exhibit hall.

Quilts are "more than just a blanket that people keep themselves warm with," said event chairwoman Cathy Evans, 55. "It's art. It's phenomenal what people can do with fabrics and thread."

Admission is $6 each day. Money raised goes toward the guild's community projects, including the foster care programs in Yuba and Sutter counties, Pink October, Beale Air Force Base communications squadron, juvenile hall and Ronald McDonald House.

"In my grandmother's time ... (quilting) was truly a necessity," said featured quilter Givans, 78, last week. "She just had a scrap bag" of material, while Givans can choose her own fabrics, colors and tools.

The longtime Yuba-Sutter resident, who first quilted as a 10-year-old, really began quilting in the 1980s and has made quilts for family and friends throughout the years.

"(Quilting) appealed to me (in) that you could have what you wanted," she said. "No one else is going to have a piece exactly like yours."

Featured quilter Easter, 70, noted the beautiful colors in the various quilts at the show. "Come look and admire everybody else's skill," she said.

Making her first quilt, with wool cloth, before leaving for college in 1961, Easter didn't make another one until 1978. She has shown some of her work at the show every year and makes quilts for various charities.

"I love to cook and sew," Easter said, "but I'd rather make quilts than clothes."

The show also includes quilts made by members in answer to the show's "challenge" asking them to create a work of art using fabrics from the 1930s and from the present, a country store on Saturday and quilting demonstrations on Sunday.

The fundraiser also has a drawing for an opportunity quilt made of whole cloth, with silk and antique linen. Tickets are $1 each or six for $5. The winner will be selected at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Givans said that quilting gives her "so much inspiration and so many ideas of what I would like to try."

She added, "I never had a clue that 30 years (later) I would not have moved on to something else."

CONTACT Leticia Gutierrez at lgutierrez@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4722.