Pigeon
Forge, TN – January 2017 / Newsmaker Alert / More than 500 artfully
designed and carefully stitched quilts will compete for more than $20,000
in prize money at the 23rd A
Mountain Quiltfest in Pigeon
Forge this spring. The five-day event, one of biggest of its kind in
the U.S., is March 21-25, 2017.
A Mountain Quiltfest will
feature more than 60 classes and lectures about America’s popular folk
art taught by world-class instructors. There is a fee for classes, but
admission to the quilt displays and a vendor mall is free.
New in 2017, award-winning
cowgirl poet Yvonne Hollenbeck and “the first lady of Western music” Jean
Prescott will present five classes at A Mountain Quiltfest. Performing
together, Hollenbeck and Prescott share the history of the Western prairie
through song and poetry alongside historic photographs of quilters as well
as generations-old quilts, including Hollenbeck’s collection of family
quilts that spans 140 years. A free session hosted by the duo on March
23 at noon features Hollenbeck’s collection of aprons made from vintage
feed sacks.
“A Mountain Quiltfest showcases
how quilts were born of necessity and pieced from scrap fabric and feed
sacks and have evolved into decorative masterpieces that are artfully designed,
displayed and collected today,” said Butch Helton, manager of the Pigeon
Forge Department of Tourism’s special events office, which organizes the
activity along with the Piecemakers and Sevier Valley Quilters guilds.
Twenty quilt categories will
be displayed, including ones with this year’s special theme – two fabrics.
Displays and the festival’s
classes, demonstrations and special activities are in the LeConte
Center at Pigeon Forge, the city’s 232,000-square-foot events facility.
In addition to the classes,
many people visit A Mountain Quiltfest to get appraisals of quilts that
are family heirlooms.
Candace St. Lawrence, an
American Quilter’s Society certified appraiser, will appraise quilts on
March 21, 23, 24 and 25 by appointment. (Make appointments by contacting
Lana Bowes at 865-429-7350 or LBowes@CityOfPigeonForge.com.)
Several antique quilt bed
turnings are scheduled during the event. These are sessions where local
quilters and guild members offer detailed information about collections
of quilts made before 1966.
Information about visiting
Pigeon Forge is at MyPigeonForge.com.
Details of A Mountain Quiltfest are at MyPigeonForge.com/events/quiltfest.
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Contact:
Trish
McGee
for Pigeon Forge Department
of Tourism
615-327-1189 |