Forest Festival to feature Log Cabin Quilters Guild Show
Edgar Kelly – Staff Writer
ELKINS — For three consecutive days during the Mountain State Forest Festival, the annual Log Cabin Quilters Guild Quilt Show will be offered at the Elkins-Randolph County YMCA.
This marks the seventh year for the show, and the first since 2019, as the MSFF was canceled the last two years due to COVID-19. Admission to the event is free and the show will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the first two days — Saturday and Sunday — of the festival, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the final day, Sunday, Oct. 8.
In addition to the traditional show displays, West Virginia quilt artist Amy Pabst will have a collection of her 23 log cabin quilts on exhibit. Pabst’s quilts have been entered in quilt shows both nationally and internationally, and she has been awarded many blue ribbons for her work.
Pabst also recently had her first book published in France by Quiltmania Magazine called “Log Cabin: The 100,000 Piece Project.”She was flown to France courtesy of Quiltmania so that she could teach her technique to quilters in that country.
Pabst will continue her teachings when she travels to the Netherlands next spring. She lives in the town of LeRoy in Jackson County and was recently certified by the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges. She has been a professional quilt judge since 2014.
“Life can be confusing, unpredictable and overwhelming, but quilting gives me purpose and structure, and sets things in an order that I can make sense of,” Pabst said.
As in past years, the 2022 event will showcase quilts made at Kids-Teens Summer Quilt Camps at the Elkins Sewing Center, and a Featured Quilter, which will be Marlinton resident Diana Beverage, who has been quilting and making artwork for 33 years.
Beverage is the owner of the quilting and art company Artcents, and will have a collection of her own work on display at the show. Some of her pictorial quilts were purchased by the West Virginia Cultural Center in Charleston and are part of its permanent collection.
Once again the Quilt Show’s boutique will offer an abundance of handmade items for the close to 2,000 visitors who walk through the show each year. Proceeds taken from the boutique will benefit the Guild’s community projects, that include quilts for patients on dialysis at the Fresenius Kidney Care in Elkins, and the annual Quilt of Valor, that is given to a local veteran each year.
The theme for this year’s show will be the traditional “Log Cabin Block” quilt pattern. The design made its debut in the United States during the Civil War and is a favorite of many quilters. Many Log Cabin quilts made by Guild members will be on display at the show.
