A record number of people walked through the doors of the Dolores Community Center Friday and Saturday to see a record number of quilts hanging at the Dolores Mountain Quilters Quilt Show.
"It was fantastic, the best show ever," said Terri Hoff, the quilt show chair.
There was a record number of entries, at about 130 and a record number of people who attended at about 650. The quilt show is put on by the club every two years.
The last quilt show drew about 400 visitors.
Bright quilts, beautiful quilts, complicated quilts and cute quilts greeted visitors, but the best part of the show was story behind the quilts.
Vicky Michaels loves telling the story of her family's quilt, which won a second-place award for machine applique and is titled "Rachelle's Farm Quilt." But she can't do so without getting tears in her eyes.
Michaels' mother, Reva Moore, was an avid quilter and made nearly all her 13 children a quilt. She had started a quilt for her youngest daughter, Rachelle, but passed away in 2011, leaving her youngest without a finished quilt.
Moore was working on the quilt in 2008 and teaching a quilting class. Everyone in the class sewed a block for the quilt that included a farm scene.
Recently, Michaels and some of her sisters decided to finish the quilt and really wanted to make it special.
"Elaine Brown did a beautiful job in quilting it," Michaels said.
Brown took extra time on this quilt because she knew it meant so much and quilted sayings into it that Rachelle's mother was fond of saying.
"'This too shall pass,' is my favorite saying my mother would say all the time," Michaels said.
Rachelle was in high school when her mom passed away and was in FFA, which is why the quilt has a farm theme.
Rachelle is in College at Wyoming University, majoring in agriculture. When she was in high school both she and her mother were very much into FFA, Michaels explained.
"She is going to cry when she sees it," Michaels said.
At the quilt show, dozens of quilters were seen peering into Rachelle's quilt and reading the hundreds of sayings stitched onto it.
Also at the show was Janice Richardson. She had five quilts at the show and did very well when the results came back. She explained how hard it was to piece some of them together, but also how much she loves quilting.
"It's addictive. It's better than smoking or drinking or doing drugs," Richardson laughed.
The Peoples Choice award went to Elaine Brown for her machine quilting of a rabbit-themed quilt titled "Seeds of Time." The quilt belongs to Cheryl Kitley.
"It was so much fun to do," Brown said.
Brown is a professional long arm quilter.
