(birds chipping)
- I never thought I would even look at a quilt.
But I live in a quilt city.
- [News Anchor] It is A.Q.S Quilt Week.
We found bus loads of people
at Paducah's riverfront area yesterday.
QuiltWeek officially begins this morning.
- Today's the day!
- Everybody knows the quilters are in town.
- QuiltWeek is, it's chaos.
- We need to jagger a little bit.
Down! Down, down, down.
Oh, no-no-no.
- Sheer unadulterated chaos.
Oh!
- Wow!
- Everybody is gonna have a good time?
- [Crowd] Yes.
- Good, I love it.
- Some quilters call this Mecca.
Some call it the Academy Awards of quilting.
- I went for the big one.
And I got in.
- You're standing where millions
of quilters from all over the world,
have come to celebrate the amazing art of quilting.
(band music)
- This is the lady that sold me my machine!
- [Group] Yeey!
(machine sewing)
- [Irene] I'm from Indiana,
but when my husband was ready to retire
it was like, I know where I want to go.
That's what brought me to move here is the quilts.
- That's what we're hear a lot,
"Oh, you're so lucky,
you get to live in Paducah where the quilts are."
- [Irene] This is my work studio.
This is my mess.
There's one of my works, the horses up there.
This here, I was sick and my friends,
my quilting friends helped me and prayed for me.
So that's what this, the geese represents.
- [Irene] Kirby. (laughs)
- [Bobbe] He's a big helper.
- [Irene] Yeah.
- [Bobbe] We started quilting together
about 10 years ago.
We won third place, first time entered
and that was in 2011.
And then the following year, we entered a quilt
called "The Ginkgo Tree" and we won second place.
If I'm not working on sewing,
if I'm not cooking, or cleaning, or doing laundry,
I'm sewing.
I have made probably 200 quilts, at least.
- It's become an obsession.
We collect rulers, we buy fabric like crazy,
we don't even know what we're gonna do with it.
We just stroke it, we have to have it.
- [Irene] You keep trying all these different techniques,
you wanna make more and it takes over your entire life.
(suspensful music)
You get the quilt fever.
- [Janet] They look like oil paintings some of them.
You have to like, "Oh, my gosh, that's a quilt.
It's fabric but it looks like an oil painting.
- [Vicki] Yeah.
- [Janet] So if you see anything Vicki start--
- [Vicki] All right, we're gonna go--
- [Janet] Just head to the cutting table but we'll see if--
- [Vicki] I know, but you know we have to stop,
we have to scan.
- [Janet] I know we have to scan.
- [Vicki] We're scanning.
- [Janet] We bought some of that already.
- [Vicki] One nice thing about quilters,
they're lovely people,
until, there's only two yards left on the bolt,
and you both want some. (laughs)
- [Vicki] That is stinking cute.
Excuse me.
Look how nice.
He's helping her buy fabric.
- 148.72.
- No matter what that number says,
we always say, "That's not bad." (laughs)
- [Janet] We laugh and we cry together.
I didn't know her from Adam five years ago.
- [Vicki] Til I opened a quilt shop.
- And I went in by accident.
And the rest is history. - [Vicki] And here we are.
Now we knew next time to get it when we first see it.
Well, we know that, we should have.
(crowd chatters)
I've been going back to the hotel and--
just working my Sudoku books.
- No, I have not.
Other than on TV.
♪ The Quilt Channel ♪
- Do you want me put my dark sunglasses on
'cause then I'll look cooler?
Well, they always say not.
They never say like car dealers too.
Don't let him wear dark sunglasses.
Can you hear me now?
- Stop pulling it, Linda.
- Where is it? Oh!
- One of my favorite things that happens
is when somebody walks up and says,
"Hey, I've been to the show for 20 years,
or 25 years, or 28 years
and I've watched you every, every year."
How any miles of thread,
do you think you've been through?
Before we were on the Internet, it was,
"I was gonna stay at this one motel
but they didn't have The Quilt Channel
so I left and went somewhere else.
Oh, and Happy Quilting!
- [Linda] We're here to put out the red carpet
for people from literally all over the world.
- [Alan] Linda that's a stop sign.
- [Linda] Where?
- [Alan] You at right now where you are.
It is a 24-hour, a day schedule for us.
- [Linda] Especially for Alan.
- Not a lot of sleep goes on this week.
The Quilt Channel was started in 1990
by Terry Schmidt, Linda's husband.
Unfortunately, Terry passed away in 2010.
So part of what we do this
is a love for the quilters and the quilts themselves
but also as a legacy to Terry.
- [Linda] You got all the mics in there?
- [Alan] Yes they're in there.
- [Linda] Oh my favorite part of the day,
I get to use my automatic.
Yay!
- Don't leave me, we're a team remember.
- You're faster than me,
You're older and faster.
- Well!
I still get excited by the quilts.
- [Announcer] Welcome to AQS Quilt Week
Be sure to visit all five vendor areas
including the expo center,
the first and the second floor,
of the convention center and the dome pavilion.
And don't forget to hop on the downtown trolley,
to shop the vendors on Kentucky Avenue.
- We're sending them back on Facebook.
Everybody's wanting 'em.
- Let me check real quick back if I can pan down.
These are rock stars here.
You know, of quilting
and you've heard that term here a lot.
- Quilting celebritis, they definitely can be called that.
- Wow!
- That quilt is Best in Show.
And it was done by a lady in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- Where?
I'm gonna be famous too, one day.
- Oh, you are, you are.
I think the idea of having competition has really made
the quilt world even better than it can be.
I used a light to medium weight,
fusable interfacing to stabilize it.
You know, you don't start out winning Best of Show,
you hopefully get into a show.
- She is the most selfless person,
that's why she's so deserves this.
- I wanted to do a history of my family.
And I used stars because stars are wonderful.
The center part is my parents, it represents my parents
- Getting together, sharing, and encouraging each other
it's just fabulous, very fabulous.
- If we start, rotate around here,
everybody be patient
and everybody will be able to see, okay?
- It was piece by my grandmother and my mom.
- This is one of those quilts
you have to buy another ruler for. (laughs)
- Five, four
Three, two, one.
Yay!
- One of my favorite things to do during QuiltWeek
is to come and talk with you.
- Thank you.
- I mean I always learn something.
I mean you're one of my heroes
when it comes to the business world of quilting.
- Well, thank you.
- 'Cause you've been doing this now for 40 years.
- Eleanor Burns.
- Eleanor Burns. - Eleanor Burns.
- She's the queen of quilts and has been for decades.
- I tell people I'm just a normal person.
- [Eleanor Burns] I did my first book with my husband.
After we finished that book
he left,
he moved on to other things.
I really was left to support my two sons alone.
And so you have to do something.
(crowd cheering)
- People call me a striper.
A strip is a piece of fabric.
You start with a strip of fabric and you just cut it up
and turn it into something different.
So we are strippers, and everybody's proud of it.
(crowd cheering)
- [Eleanor Burns] Okay-okay-okay, I'm ready.
Okay, all right, are we ready?
You ready?
- [Crowd] Yes!
(crowd cheering)
- What I teach is the simple, the ordinary
that anybody could make.
Raise it up.
All right.
Oh!
Ooo!
Ahhh!
Oh!
Look at that! Isn't that beautiful.
What I really am most proud of
is when people come up and say
they made their first quilt and it changed their life.
- [Assistant] One, two, three, got it.
- You remember him?
- You come with her every year.
- [Man] Every year, yeah.
- It was different this year, wasn't it?
- [Man] It was.
One, two, three, perfect.
- Thank you.
- Thank you. - Thank you so much
- Yes, watch my step! (laughs)
Thank you.
It's the same thing for everybody.
We're just all sharing our love of quilting.
Bye
- When we seen her quilt, we made the hotel reservations.
It was just like, you're going.
- I didn't think I had a chance to getting in.
But everyone else thought I did, but I did not.
(crowd clapping)
- During this week, Paducah truly does become
Quilt City, U.S.A.
- Quilts just feel good, you know. (laughs)
Making something out of nothing.
- It leaves something for my kids, when you know,
when I'm gone
they'll still have a part of me.
- If I'm down and I'm having a hard day,
it's not long I'm start cutting and putting quilt together.
- [Announcer] It's with great pride
that we now announce the winner
of the 34th A.Q.S Quilt Contest.
- Quilts help to change lives
Because people see in them some beauty
or something about life.
- My sister had Alzheimer's
and she wasn't able to quilt anymore.
So I did this for my sister.
(crowd cheering)
- My brother has passed away a few years ago with cancer
and my other brother just passed away in October.
I just wanted to do a story about my family.
- Next up is first entry
in an A.Q.S Paducah contest category.
And the first place award, "Boudinet Clan."
Anita Huber, New Lebanon Ohio.
(crowd cheering)
- [Announcer] This quilt represents Anita's entire family.
Anita used the feathered start quilt blocks
one pattern by Marsha McClosky as her design source
Free motion quilting on a movable machine.
- [Anita] My dreams have come true.
Knowing that I can do it.
I never knew it in myself.
But now I (laughs) I got it.
- It's a symbol of hope,
someone's life,
their love.
It's much more than just,
a quilt.
- I think it's a harmony
don't you, Bobbe?
- That's a good way to put.
- Yeah, there's a harmony among quilters
that the world can learn from.
- [Alan] All right, one more quilt show in the books.
See, quilters are creative in lots of different ways.
Not only what they do with the fiber arts,
but also when they pick out their license plates.
- [Linda] Yeah.