By Tiffany Green

STAFF WRITER

Quilt lovers from the Southeast gathered at St. Bernard Retreat Center this weekend for the ninth Annual Quilt Symposium of Alabama.

“I have traveled miles to see quilts and there are some quilts here just as beautiful as you see in museums,” said Judy Whitworth of Moulton.

Avid quilters came to enter quilts into the show, to take classes and hear lectures from nationally known quilters.

More than 89 quilts and handmades were entered in the symposium. There were a variety of categories of judging and ribbons were awarded to first, second and third places and honorable mention, best of show chosen by judges, judge's choice, and viewer's choice.

Melanie Holodnak and her husband, owners of Memory Lane Quilting, traveled from Augusta, GA, to attend the show.

They are the Southeast sellers of the Nolting Longarm sewing machine.

“It’s now more accepted to use a sewing machine,” she said. “It is faster and more efficient.”

She said people are using machine more because people can do more in a shorter time.

“It really helps out a lot because you can do a lot more,” Holodnak said.

Holodnak said she and her four children are learning the art of quilting. She does not want it to end with this generation.

“I want to teach my children quilting,” she said.

Patty Williams and Teresa Hartzog traveled from Athens for the show.

“Every morning she’s up at 3 quilting,” Hartzog said. “She’s been my mentor.”

The ladies said they enjoy quilting because it can be a relaxing activity.

Sisters Donna and Ruth Wilson go to every quilt show they can make.

“We hand quilt,” Donna said. “It is more relaxing to do by hand than to sit at a machine.”

The show was judged this year by Bonnie Browning and Kathy Kansier.

Browning is author of nine quilting books and is the executive show director at the American Quilter’s Society in Paducah, Kentucky.

Kansier is a quilt teacher, quilt show judge and the American Quilter’s Society certified appraiser.

The symposium also featured classes, lectures, judged quilting show, merchant’s mall, teacher book signing party, show and tell from previous symposiums, challenge contest and a traveling quilt show.

The traveling quilt show featured patriotic themed quilts and handmades with a variety of American symbols.

The Quilt Symposium of Alabama, Inc. was formed in 2001 to provide programming, information and training through an annual symposium. The primary purpose of the Quilt Symposium of Alabama Board of Directors is to oversee the annual statewide symposium to be held in the spring or summer.

The event is hosted by different quilt guilds each year at St. Bernard. For more information about the 2010 symposium visit www.qsai.org or call Paulette Burgett at 256-796-1243.

‰ Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 221.