Quilt Canada Vancouver 2022 – Under the Sails

A report from Marilyn C …

Another Quilt Canada in Vancouver is over.

Quilt Canada is an annual national show organized by the Canadian Quilters’ Association and held in various cities across the country. The theme for the 2022 show was “Reconnected,” and we reconnected “in person” with members of our own guild, with shop owners, and with the joy of seeing quilts “for real.”

The show was held from Thursday, June 16 through Saturday, June 18, “under the sails” at the Vancouver Convention Centre East by the harbour. The venue has good lighting and lots of room to spread out.

Quilt Canada was in three parts on the Convention Centre floor – The National Juried Show, the Merchant Mall and Demo Booth, and a number of other exhibits.  On the second floor were workshops and lectures.

The National Juried Show was excellent with quilts from all over Canada.  Some local quilters you may know had quilts in the show.

Jane Ellis and Leslie Forbes from Lions Gate Quilters’ Guild showed quilts, as did Lorna Shapiro, Laura Gates, and Terry Aske from Vancouver and New Westminster.  Jo Allbutt from Victoria had four quilts in the show and Marianne Haak had one.

One overall impression I had of this show was of colour, maybe because we haven’t seen so many quilts in one place for a long time or because there were more colourful quilts this year.

The Merchant Mall had booths with sewing and quilting machines of every brand.  One could try them out or just browse.  There was fabric and notions from shops we know by their physical locations or their online websites, and more.

The Demo Booth hosted speakers on various quilting techniques.

Other exhibits included:

• The CQA Challenges: Youth Challenges, the Guild Challenge, the Member Challenge which will now go on tour for a year, and the Trend Tex Challenge with its silent auction fundraiser
• Quilts of Valour, which offered an opportunity to sew a maple leaf block
• Quilts for Survivors, where ladies in ribbon skirts talked about their initiative for indigenous survivors of residential schools
• The Guild Connecting Guilds area, where our Guild banner and quilt looked good.  It was great to see the other banners.  There were some intricate banners, and the quilts the guilds contributed were interesting and varied in style.
• Chromatopia, by the Fabric Art Networks (FAN) – 12″ square pieces in a rainbow of colours
• World Wide Whispers, quilts from five participating countries, based on the childrens’ whispering game

A few of our members participated in the workshops, and we hope they will bring their projects for Show and Tell in September and tell us about the workshops. 

Attendance was down this year what with COVID and fewer people wanting to travel but it meant it was quite roomy for us.  It was fun.

Thanks to so many of our members who volunteered.  We had fun volunteering, and often had opportunities to speak to the people who run the CQA, to the quilt artists, to quilters, and to visitors from away.

The next Quilt Canada will be in Halifax – June 7-10, 2023.  Hmmm, interesting.

Marilyn C

Photos: Marilyn C, Judy S

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For more, see the list of prize winners on the CQA website and see some photos of the show on our website.

We would love to hear about your experience at the show. Comments welcome.