The 46th annual Kalona Quilt Show and Sale took place April 27-29 at the Kalona Historical Village.
The cold and rainy weekend served as a perfect time to nestle under a blanket, but for the 46th annual Kalona quilt show it was a perfect time to show off handcrafted furnishings. From Thursday through Saturday the sale showed 300 all handcrafted antique and new quilts at the Kalona Historical Village. This was the first year the show was held at the village, as the previous location, the Kalona community center, is under renovation. The quilt show was held in conjunction with the Vintage and Handmade show.
The quilts all come consigned from the Woodin Wheel Antiques store. Katie Karnes, one of the show’s organizers and co-owner of the Woodin Wheel tells how the antique quilts are collected: “Just from different collectors and some people inherit them and don’t want them or some people collect them and change their collections, so they’ll sell one to get a different one, and some just come to sell.”
300 antique and new handcrafted quilts were on sale at the annual Kalona Quilt show.
Karnes and Brenda Herington have run the show and co-owned the Woodin Wheel since 2003, prior to then the show was organized by Woodin Wheel founder Marilyn Woodin. There are new and different quilts to see each year, as Herington explains, “We try not to bring the same quilts back, because people want to see different things and as fabrics change, one year we had a lot of giant dahlias and the next year it was log cabin quilts. You don’t know what the quilters are bringing in but it’s what the fabrics are showing and what’s popular that year you’ll see more of, it’s constantly changing.”
Herington said she and Karnes are grateful to the Kalona Rotarians, Kalona Historical Village staff, and local volunteers for helping with the event. Herington said “Really it’s a community effort to make this event happen, we just couldn’t do it without them.” Karnes and Herington said they didn’t mind the dreary weather as it brought in people who otherwise might have spent the weekend outside.