Cozy collection: Quilts on display at the Grant County Fair

MOSES LAKE — At the Grant County Fair, it seems like there’s an exhibit for just about everyone to enjoy and explore. In the Home Economics Building, fair guests find themselves surrounded by a variety of quilts of different shapes and designs.

Roylene Scoggin and Barbara Bolton have been superintendents for the quilting exhibit at the Grant County Fair since about 2004. Scoggin said the quilts have become a popular stop for fair patrons, as the exhibit has continued to expand in size every year.

Scoggin said the quilts come from all over Grant County and some are from Adams County. This year, she said most of the quilts are from Moses Lake quilters, with one from Ephrata and another from Coulee City.

Scoggin and Bolton both got started with the exhibit in the 1990s as quilters themselves. Bolton said she took charge of the exhibit in the late 90s, with a few years off in between, before joining forces with Scoggin in the early 2000s.

Scoggin said she first got involved at the fair at age 9 as a 4-H student before taking the mantle as superintendent of the quilting exhibit.

“In our early years, we just had a little corner in the Home Ec building,” Scoggin said. “In time, that’s progressed in our knowledge and space and new ways we’ve been able to expand to the area we have now.”

This year, she said the quilts line the sides of the building, sometimes running its length. In total, she said there are 85 quilts this year, with the number varying year to year. Scoggin said they’ve had as many as 120 before and as few as 56, so this year comes in right about average.

Scoggin said they see all kinds of designs, from the typical, traditional piece quilts to the art quilts and handworked pieces. Most quilts are done by machine nowadays with only a few hand-quilted submissions.

Best in show quilts were selected Saturday before the Grant County Fair by process of elimination. Each quilt is first judged on its own merit before being judged against other quilts in its division, such as hand-stitched, machine-stitched or group quilts. Each division is broken down further by age and size of the quilt.

Once best of selections have been chosen from each division, then judges decide on the best in show from those selections. Scoggin said putting large quilts up against smaller quilts in competition typically doesn’t offer much chance for the smaller quilts to win.

Quilting is a constant learning process, Scoggin said. By offering critiques from judges for each quilt, she said it helps quilters continue to improve upon their craft each year.

“They critique the quilt and the judges are told to give a positive statement first always even if you have to look for it and say ‘the color blue is beautiful’,” Scoggin said. “That’s usually not an issue, then they’ll offer some tips on technique, whatever they see.”

Bolton said judges for the event are typically quilters themselves. She said they try to find quilters from outside the county to prevent any risk of judges knowing who made the quilts.

Bolton said there are a lot of quilters in this area and a lot of talent. Bolton said the quilting exhibit has continued to evolve every year. Stepping away from her traditional quilting projects to try out something like an art quilt has been fun, she said.

“They’re small and they’re art and they’re something that if you took a photograph and duplicated that in fabric, used glue and glued the fabric on it,” Bolton said. “Those have been kind of fun to step away from what I normally do to do something different.”

Bolton said it’s been good to see everyone she’s used to seeing again this year after missing out on the fair last year due to its cancellation. Talking with people about their quilts is probably the thing she enjoys best about helping out with the exhibit.

“They’re excited and it’s fun to talk; having the judges there is interesting and then we have our volunteers,” Bolton said. “I hate to tell you, but we have a good time. We have a lot of volunteers that help us too.”

As guests make their way through the Home Ec building, Bolton said it’s fun to watch people coming through and their varied responses to the quilts hanging up. Some won’t even turn to look, while others will take their time looking at every detail of every one.

Casey McCarthy can be reached via email at cmccarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.