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PRESS RELEASE: March 22, 2009
Contact: Teresa Mitchell, Seaway Trail Foundation, 315-646-1000
Seaway Trail Foundation Announces Quilt Show Winners
Contact: Teresa Mitchell, Seaway Trail Foundation, 315-646-1000
Seaway Trail Foundation Announces Quilt Show Winners
 Dyan Swamp (pictured above) with her Viewer's Choice favorite quilt from the 2010 Great Lakes Seaway Trail "Circles & Wheels" Quilt Show and Competition. The full quilt is shown below.  |
Sackets Harbor, NY – Quilting enthusiasts can visit the 2010 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Competition-winning quilter at her shop at the eastern end of the 518-mile Great Lakes Seaway Trail byway. They can also bid to own the quilt voted second place honors by visitors to the annual show at the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor, NY.
The Seaway Trail Foundation has announced Dyan Swamp’s “Rainbow Spiral” as the Viewer’s Choice favorite quilt from among the works depicting “Circles and Wheels” at the two-day show. Swamp received a $200 cash prize for her 20-color, strip-pieced round quilt adapted from a “Quilts Without Corners” pattern. Swamp was a “Featured Quilter” with 12 works exhibited at the 2010 show. She has participated in all 10 years of the annual event, and operates Dreamcrafters Quilt Shop on the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation at the eastern end of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail.
Show visitors awarded the $150 second prize to “All Year ‘Round” by the Town Barn Quilters of the Town of Hounsfield and Village of Sackets Harbor. Beth Burdick, Christine Eggleston, Jan LaDuke, Diane Nier, Leona Webb, and Karen Williams created a full-size bed quilt with blocks that include a snowman, pumpkins, moonlit owl, Celtic knotwork, gardens, and grapevines centered around a wagon wheel with yo-yo design elements, antique buttons and beading to accentuate the circles and wheels theme. This quilt will be exhibited locally along the byway and raffled to support local charities.
Mary Knapp’s Wheel of Mystery was selected as the $50 third prize winner. Knapp’s machine-pieced quilt uses a classic Maltese Cross pattern that goes by many names, with subtle differences in light, dark and warm batik fabrics giving it movement. A photo CD of the 2010 show quilts that includes six circle and wheel patterns designed by Knapp earlier this year is available from Seaway Trail, Inc., 315-646-1000.
The original design, hand-quilted and hand-embroidered “Historic and Modern Day Seaway Trail” quilt by Beverly Filkins of Pulaski was judged the quilt that best tells the story of “wheeling” along the 518-mile-long Great Lakes Seaway Trail. Filkins says, “I combined the richness of the past and the boldness of the modern day Seaway Trail with historic Fort Niagara, Horse Island Lighthouse and the Seaway Trail Discovery Center (in the former Union Hotel built in 1817) with the present-day recreational activities of fishing and sightseeing the natural beauty of the byway.”
Filkins dedicated the quilt to her great-great grandfather Enoch Barnes, who was a preacher and a participant in the Battle of Sackets Harbor in the way of 1812. She received a $50 cash prize.
The cash prizes were made possible by the Seaway Trail Foundation and the Orleans County Country Barn Quilt Trail, a 22-mile loop tour off the byway with more than 40 barns painted with quilt block patterns.
Featured quilter displays and competition entry quilts for the 2010 show highlighted both quilting techniques and the travel experience along the Great Lakes Seaway Trail that is one of America’s Byways and a National Recreation Trail. The quilts and that experience include waterfront vistas, bicycling, a taste of deep-fried pickles along Seaway Trail Pennsylvania, historic forts, lighthouses, sailing, weddings at Boldt Castle in the 1000 Islands and at Niagara Falls, military history and the mariners’ service, the byway’s scenic colors and natural beauty, birdwatching, fishing, farm market shopping, winter fun, live along the St. Lawrence River, and the Native culture and symbols of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation.
Quilts were received from several of the byway’s 11 counties and from Santa Barbara, Ojai and Goleta, California; and Hogansburg, Akwesasne Mohawk Nation. Each entry received a special gift.
To learn more about quilting and traveling the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, go online to www.seawaytrail.com or call 315-646-1000. The 2011 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Quilt Show will feature the works of NY and Pennsylvania quilters who have published books, articles or patterns. # # #