Kāpiti Coast Quilters Exhibition prepares for great weekend

Suzanne Sage, left, Margaret Atkins, and Jane McNamara with the raffle quilt. Photo / Grace Odlum

This weekend will be a good one for the district’s quilting community, with the arrival of the Kāpiti Coast Quilters Exhibition.

The much-anticipated exhibition is held every two years and has been held at Southward Car Museum since 2015 but has been in existence for much longer than that.

It’s an event that gets quilters nationwide excited - especially this year with the attendance of the esteemed Aotearoa Quilters who have over 400 members from all around the country and overseas.

The exhibition has always been held by the Kāpiti Coast Quilters Guild, and this year is being convened by members Suzanne Sage and Jane McNamara, who were both feeling pretty enthusiastic about the event.

“It’s one of those things about organising, you never quite know what you’re going to get, so we’ve been really quite overwhelmed with the response,” Sage said.

Their guild, which is convened by Margaret Atkins, has about 120 members, and the majority of them created something for the exhibition.

With close to 130 quilts being displayed, Atkins said it looks like it’ll be a great exhibition.

“It’s really exciting to see how many first-time entrants there are, and it’s quite a big thing to exhibit, put yourself out there and be vulnerable. It’s a big step for a lot of people.”

Sage said there will be a huge range of different quilts to see, ranging from your everyday quilts to art quilts that have been dyed and painted.

There are also going to be several different displays at the exhibition, including the Out of the Blue challenge which is for guild members.

Members are challenged to make an A4-sized quilt based on their interpretation of “out of the blue”, and that quilt can be anything from cushions, bags, clothing, and more.

The raffle quilt. Photo / Grace Odlum

The Aotearoa Quilters will also have two displays, the first being the Red Challenge which is for both their members and non-members.

These quilts can be 12-inch squares and there are 61 entries.

Those entries have also been travelling to other exhibits, and still have more to visit.

The Aotearoa Quilters’ second display is the Light it Up challenge, which was only available to members.

There were 29 entries for this display, with 20 being chosen, and this will be officially unveiled at the exhibition for the first time, which McNamara said will draw a lot of visitors.

There’s also a raffle quilt on offer, which was designed collectively by the members of the guild, and has been travelling around the Lower North Island and being displayed in various quilting shops.

It’s one of the few quilts for sale at the event, with most of them having sentimental value and being kept by their creators.

However, one of the guild’s charity groups, Community Quilts, will be having a silent auction to help raise funds to continue quilting for charity.

And while there may not be many quilts for sale, there will also be a whole section of the exhibition dedicated to merchants who are selling various quilting supplies, including fabrics, patterns, notions, and fibre art.

Sage said they’re expecting a big turnout, with buses from Palmerston North, the Wairarapa, and Whanganui visiting.

And they’re always looking for new members for the guild too and encourage people to join their community if they’re interested in learning.

You don’t have to create huge quilts, “you can scale it as big or as small as you want,” Sage said.