Debbie Coddington stands in front of one of her favorite quilts that she made." />
Debbie Coddington stands in front of one of her favorite quilts that she made.
Every day, Debbie Coddington spends anywhere from a few minutes to the majority of the day working on her quilts.
Coddington was selected as the featured quilter at this year’s semi-annual Eudora Quilt Guild Quilt Show. Usually, the event is held every even year but, due to COVID-19, this is the second year in a row the show is being held.
Coddington made her first stitch at a young age, but it wasn’t until around the mid-1990s that she got into quilting.
Coddington works on multiple projects at one time so she said it can be difficult to figure out how long each of the quilts have taken her to make. She said the fastest one she has ever made is 30 by 30 inches and took her a week.
Forty of Coddington’s quilts are being featured in the show, which is nearly all of the quilts she has made to date. Some of the quilts are on display at her house and others she has given away to families.
“If they’re ones that I don’t want people handling, I might hang those on the walls,” Coddington said. “I do have some on the couch that are just, you know, do whatever with. Sometimes the dogs are even on them.”
Peggy Claggett, quilt show co-chair, said making quilts can be rather expensive. She estimated a bed-sized quilt can cost the quilter anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $1,000, depending on many factors.
“I wouldn’t make it to sell them because nobody would buy them for what it cost me even, you know, just in fabric and quilting. So I just make them for my family,” she said.
The show has 127 quilts, which includes Coddington’s 40 quilts, that are voted on by those who attend the event. There are nine quilts that will receive a first, second or third place based on the three different size categories.
Seven vendors, along with a bake sale, the guild garage sale and a raffle for a quilt made by Claggett, are part of the daily events. There is a $5 admission fee to the show, which goes toward paying for monthly rent for the Eudora Quilt Guild’s meetings and speakers.
Along with the weekend quilting activities, Quilting Bits & Pieces celebrated its 25th anniversary Friday. For co-founder Christina DeArmond, opening a quilt store was not always on her agenda, but it was her sister Amy Deay’s idea.
“I lived in Minnesota at the time, and she kept saying, when you move home to Kansas, we’re gonna open a quilt shop,” DeArmond said. “And so I moved back home in August and we opened in November. I fell in love with it, and I’ve loved it since.”
DeArmond said while the store has had its low years, it always picks back up. Over the years, she has trained over 5,000 people how to twill, which involves weaving and knotting threads to create a pattern.
One current trend DeArmond has noticed among quilters is gnome-themed fabric and making quilts with gnomes on them.
“That was kind of the hot thing, and it’s kind of slowing down finally,” DeArmond said.
One color that Claggett said has been popular for the past few years is teal.
“I’m ready for blue to come back. It seems like when teal came in you couldn’t find a blue blue,” she said.
The show’s final day is Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the United Methodist Church. Claggett recommended anyone interested in joining the quilt guild to join its Facebook group to keep up to date.
Reach reporter Hannah Nystrom at [email protected].