It’s not only Grandma who would have fun this weekend at the largest quilt festival on the Eastern seaboard.
Non-quilters might be tempted to take up a new hobby after a visit to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. The four-day celebration of artistry and creativity opened Thursday at the Hampton Convention Center and it inspires the eye and the hand with its brilliant colors, detailed designs and often provoking messages.
Sherry Behun came for a Wednesday night preview, available only to those who pre-registered; she was one of more than 1,000, mostly women, who poured into the doors promptly at 7:30 p.m.
“I’ve been coming to this show for 30 years and I love it,” said Behun of Hampton. “I love choosing new fabric.”
There is no shortage of that among dozens of vendors selling all the essentials and even more extras. Stop by the Suffolk Shaker Shop booth for a seam ripper and stiletto hand tool. Stop and stare at the space-age-looking machines that introduced technology into quilting. Some labels read “tariff buster pricing” but high-end ones are five figures.
“They’re Wi-Fi capable,” said Stacy Lute, an associate for vendor Sew ’N Place. “You can pick a design on your phone and send it to the machine.”
Nancy King, a vendor at The Last Stitch Quilts, sews the final stitch in every quilt she makes but prefers the detail she gets from her long-armed machine.
Kimberly McCrea uses a machine, too — an old Kenmore pulled from a closet where it sat unopened for 20 years. McCrea is at the festival with the Maryland-based Uhuru Quilters Guild, which reflects the diversity of African Americans and the quilting population.
“I’m a pandemic quilter,” said McCrea, who prefers the portability of quilting by hand and makes as many as 10 quilts a year. She gives them away.
“I like to pay homage to our roots,” she said. “Everybody remembers the quilt their grandmother made.”
The festival, in its 36th year in Hampton Roads, draws thousands with the most enthusiastic pre-registering for classes and workshops from renowned instructors. On Friday night, quilting pioneer Pat Yamin will host Quilt-O, a Bingo-type game using quilt cards with M&Ms for markers.
David Mancuso, CEO of Mancuso Show Management, said more people are accepting quilters as artists and he's seen the growth in wearable and fiber arts.
“There’s a lot going on in quilting,” Mancuso said
That includes controversy. The American Quilter’s Society recently refused to show two artworks from its 2025 shows. The pieces relate to the female body and are included in the Hampton exhibition, “Color in Context: Red.”
“We don’t censor,” said Diana Mercuri of Mancuso Show Management.
“Your Mother. Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You.” by Laura Shaw connects 3,000 squares to form a red cross that swirls and fractures around the edges. The artist said in her statement she made the quilt after the leak of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The other, the oval-shaped “Origin” by Yvonne Iten-Scott, is three-dimensional fiber art about the beginning of a new life.
The festival features 38 exhibitions that run the gamut. “Literary Allusions” showcases the work of international fiber artists moved by literature, poems or song lyrics. Colonial Peacemakers Quilt Guild in Williamsburg challenged its members to make “A Quilt About Me.” African American Quilt Guild gave its members a half yard of purple fabric to depict something from “The Color Purple.”
In a Wearable Art competition judged before the conference, Norfolk’s Meryl Ann Butler earned a blue ribbon in the full ensemble category for “Inanna, Queen of the Sun, Moon and Stars.” The pastel quilt made up of 1,500 pieces uses rhinestones, prismatic foil, medallions and lace to define the divine feminine energy found in every woman.
Kestrel Michaud won Best in Show for “The Arrival,” a machine-quilted landscape that captures the moment a diplomatic envoy from the human kingdom arrives via airship to the sunny beaches of the elven lands.
Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival runs through Sunday; Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For tickets and information visit quiltfest.com
