Firehouse Quilt Show In Castle Rock, CO

I attended the 8th Annual Firehouse Quilt Show on July 20, which was held at the events center in the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, Colorado. You can see the unique natural rock formation high on a hill, that helped to give this town its name in the photo above.

The fairgrounds event space was large, and there were quite a few vendors and exhibits to see, as well as award-winning quilts. The show had many fabrics, applique, quilt accessory, guest speakers, and other types of craft vendors and quilting classes.

The quilts were all carefully hung with a solid blue backdrop, and labeled and judged in separate categories according to style, such as computer long-armed quilted, sewing machine quilted, hand quilted, appliqued quilts, art quilts, children's quilts--12 years of age and younger, and age 13 - 18,  miniature quilts, plus a special exhibit of non-judged vintage and patriotic quilts.

I am not a quilter, but I could certainly appreciate all the effort that goes into making these fabric works of art! It was really enjoyable to walk around the hall and look at each and every one of the one hundred and fifty quilts on display. They were all so unique and a wonderful blend of traditional and modern quilting techniques.

The varieties of patriotic quilts were especially amazing!

The detail and amount of work in them were wonderful to see.

This quilt was made as a tribute to the quilter's father who served in the Air Force during World War II. Click on one to enlarge the photo (and all photos in this post), and then again when it opens to make it even larger, You can read the explanations about this quilt and the other quilts by enlarging the photos this way. 

This patriotic quilt incorporates all 50 official state flowers. I made sure to show the state flower of my new state of Colorado--the Columbine--in this photo.

This quilter's ancestor was one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence, and she incorporated his information, as well as information about every relative who served in the armed forces throughout our nation's history, in this very detailed quilt!  Make sure to click on the photos to enlarge them to see how even the back of the quilt is designed with information.

A tribute quilt to the Civil War, with each battle and date embroidered on the quilt.

A very realistic quilt that honors the bravery of all firefighters.

The quilts were professionally judged by a panel of quilt experts, such as Christine Brown--the former editor of American Quilter Magazine, Ellen Palmer--a member of the Colorado Quilting Council who worked as a judge in training for five years, and Teresa Rives--a prolific quilter who trained for three years to be a judge for the Colorado Quilt Council. The unique quilt above was a "best of show" blue ribbon winner as an art quilt -click on a photo to read more about it.

 Another intricate "best in show" and blue ribbon winner computer long-armed quilt.

This Asian-inspired blue ribbon winner appliqued quilt had many 3-D elements to it.

A blue ribbon paper piercing design quilt.

This gorgeous quilt was being donated for a special cause. The detail and colors in it were stunning.

I can't possibly show all the quilts that were on display at the show in this post, but there were many in shades of blue....and many in shades of pink!

There were multicolored quilts...

...and quilts of every imaginable design! It was so interesting to read the story behind each one.

I really liked the vintage quilts and their stories. This quilt took 70 years to complete!

This vintage quilt was from the 1880s and was on sale for $750.

There were even examples of quilted clothes, bags, and minister scarves at the show.

The most special quilts of all were the "Snuggle Quilts," some of which I show in the collage below:

The Firehouse Quilts is a non-profit group of volunteers that makes and donates 45' square quilts to Colorado fire departments, Action Care Ambulance, Denver Health Medical Center, victim advocate offices, and twin/full-sized quilts to Douglas County Women's Crisis Center to be given to children and their mother's in time of crisis.  Each year they donate over 1,000 items! 90% are "snuggle quilts" for children that have been in an automobile accident, house fire, or even domestic violence in their home. The Quilt show volunteers were doing a "bed turning" display above where they held up example after example of the types of quilts that are lovingly made and donated as "snuggle quilts" by their members.

The Annual Quilt Show is their major fundraising event and all proceeds are used to help them purchase supplies and provide quilting education for their volunteers. It truly is a wonderful mission that they perform.

I was happy to attend and contribute what I could, to this truly wonderful event. I hope you enjoyed seeing a portion of the beautiful quilts that were on display and learning about this very talented and devoted quilting organization in Colorado!