Competitive Quilting: Fabric Artists Chase $2,500 Prize in Pigeon Forge's Smoky Mountains Contest
Tom Adkinson
March 14, 2009
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (March 2008)—Competitive quilting may sound like an oxymoron to the uninitiated, but quilters can get quite serious about their art, and 31 of them from 11 states and Canada are chasing a $2,500 prize at the 15th annual A Mountain Quiltfest in Pigeon Forge (March 11-15).
The contest involves a specially-made pattern honoring the 75th anniversary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, an event celebrated throughout 2009.
A Mountain Quiltfest features more than 85 quilting classes (novice to expert) and an expansive quilt show. The quilt show, with exhibitions at the Music Road Hotel Convention Center and the Smoky Mountain Convention Center, generates attendance of more than 20,000. Show admission is free.
Klaudeen Hansen, an accomplished quilter and a certified judge for the National Quilting Association from Prairie Sun, Wisc., designed the contestīs 12-block pattern. Quilters had almost a year to make their Smoky Mountain quilts.
The pattern—with images such as a bearīs paw, a maple leaf and crossed canoes—represents the stories and heritage of what now is Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The 2009 A Mountain Quiltfest is one of six Pigeon Forge events on the official celebration calendar for the national parkīs 75th anniversary. It also is a Southeast Tourism Society Top 20 Event in the Southeast.
The City of Pigeon Forge, which put up $2,500 for the first-place winner, will donate the winning quilt to the national park for display.
There were 17 contest entrants from Tennessee, three from Virginia, two from Ohio and one each from Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Canada.
Patterns remain available at retail locations of the Great Smoky Mountains Association, including the Sugarlands Visitors Center, the Oconaluftee Visitors Center and Cades Cove in the national park. Patterns also are available online at www.smokiesinformation.org.
Hansen and the City of Pigeon Forge share the copyright on the pattern and arranged for all proceeds from pattern sales to go to the Great Smoky Mountains Association, which supports the programs of the national park.
Complete information about A Mountain Quiltfest is online at www.MyPigeonForge.com/quiltfest.asp. Other visitor information is available at www.MyPigeonForge.com or by calling toll-free to 1-800-251-9100.
(Writer Adkinson, who has never stitched a quilt, helps Pigeon Forge promote tourism.)
The contest involves a specially-made pattern honoring the 75th anniversary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, an event celebrated throughout 2009.
A Mountain Quiltfest features more than 85 quilting classes (novice to expert) and an expansive quilt show. The quilt show, with exhibitions at the Music Road Hotel Convention Center and the Smoky Mountain Convention Center, generates attendance of more than 20,000. Show admission is free.
Klaudeen Hansen, an accomplished quilter and a certified judge for the National Quilting Association from Prairie Sun, Wisc., designed the contestīs 12-block pattern. Quilters had almost a year to make their Smoky Mountain quilts.
The pattern—with images such as a bearīs paw, a maple leaf and crossed canoes—represents the stories and heritage of what now is Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The 2009 A Mountain Quiltfest is one of six Pigeon Forge events on the official celebration calendar for the national parkīs 75th anniversary. It also is a Southeast Tourism Society Top 20 Event in the Southeast.
The City of Pigeon Forge, which put up $2,500 for the first-place winner, will donate the winning quilt to the national park for display.
There were 17 contest entrants from Tennessee, three from Virginia, two from Ohio and one each from Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Canada.
Patterns remain available at retail locations of the Great Smoky Mountains Association, including the Sugarlands Visitors Center, the Oconaluftee Visitors Center and Cades Cove in the national park. Patterns also are available online at www.smokiesinformation.org.
Hansen and the City of Pigeon Forge share the copyright on the pattern and arranged for all proceeds from pattern sales to go to the Great Smoky Mountains Association, which supports the programs of the national park.
Complete information about A Mountain Quiltfest is online at www.MyPigeonForge.com/quiltfest.asp. Other visitor information is available at www.MyPigeonForge.com or by calling toll-free to 1-800-251-9100.
(Writer Adkinson, who has never stitched a quilt, helps Pigeon Forge promote tourism.)
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