The Folk Art Center will honor National Quilting Day with a three-day event from Thursday, March 13, through Saturday, March 15. Hosted by the Southern Highland Craft Guild (SHCG), this gathering will feature live quilting demonstrations, a retrospective quilt exhibit and hands-on educational opportunities for visitors.
Artist Susan Taylor
A highlight of this year’s event is a special display honoring quilt scholar, researcher and author Laurel Horton, a long-time Guild member from Seneca, SC, who will be inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in July of 2025. “Laurel is a quilt scholar, researcher, folklorist and author that has made significant contributions to quilt history and preservation,” says quilt historian Connie Brown. There will be a small retrospective exhibition of Horton’s quilt-making legacy on display during National Quilting Day.
Brown will host informal talks at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day of the event, educating visitors on how to properly label quilts to preserve their history.
“Adding a label can be a simple thing to do, you just have to make time to do it,” says Brown. She notes that in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, many quilts were found among the debris, but lacked identifying information. To help address this issue, Brown will provide quilt labeling supplies and show attendees how to sew on a label, ensuring their quilts’ stories endure for generations.
On Saturday, Brown will be joined by Horton and Jude Steucker for demonstrations. Stuecker, who has been quilting since high school, sees it as a deeply personal and expressive art form. “I still love quilting for all the variations it can hold,” she says. “There are a myriad of traditional and contemporary techniques that can be entwined.”
Also in March, the SHCG begins its daily demonstrations at the Folk Art Center. Irene Semanchuk will be demonstrating her work with polymer clay, including how she creates her Bird Light switchplates and how she applies a metalworking technique called mokume gane to her clay. “It’s a decorative surface technique that can be used for a variety of items,” she says. “I’ll be making trinket bowls, and maybe some earrings.”
Fiber artist Heidi Bleacher is among those who will be demonstrating this year, showing visitors how to needle felt a mushroom. “I’ll have a variety of my own versions of my favorite mushrooms in a rainbow of colors and varied sizes on display,” she says. “On my demo table there will be a broad assortment of all the materials and tools I use in my work. I feel there’s no better experience than seeing an object being created in front of someone, especially in this setting.”
SHCG is a non-profit, educational organization established in 1930 to cultivate the crafts and makers of the Southern Highlands for the purpose of shared resources, education, marketing and conservation. Learn more at SouthernHighlandGuild.org.
