A festival of carols....and quilts!

On Friday evening our Rotary Club's holiday party was a group outing to Carthage College, just up the road  in Kenosha. Every Christmas the Carthage music department stages a festival of readings and carols as a gift to the community. All of the choirs, the concert band, and the chamber orchestra perform. It is held in the 1,400-seat Siebert Chapel .  A buffet dinner is offered before the Friday performance -- all they ask is a free will offering. As you might imagine, tickets go fast and the chapel is full.  It is a glorious service. (Photos were not allowed during the performance -- the huge central cross was illuminated in a variegated light show.)

Dinner and a show....what could be better?  A quilt exhibit, perhaps?  Well, how about that!  The Lighthouse Quilters of Racine have art quilts on display in the gallery adjacent to the chapel, open before and after the performance.  It was interesting to observe the non-quilter concertgoers as they looked at the quilts.  Here are some of the quilts. Sorry, I only got two of the quiltmakers' names.

This exquisite applique is by Betty Ekern Suiter, who has received many awards for her hand-quilting. It is hand-appliqued, too, and the label said it took 3,640 hours to stitch.

Closeup of Betty's stitching

Kaffe Fassett fabric 

 The label acknowledges this as a Carrie Nelson pattern. 

Cindy Garcia's  portrait of her grandfather. The blue jeans are real jeans.

 That's a piece of molding, not an extension of the quilt. :)