BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Carolyn Susac stands in between The Blossoms of Baltimore, left, and Summer's Jewels, in her Reno home on Wednesday. Susac will be teaching a class during a quilt show in Silver Springs in October.
Quilting enthusiasts will get a chance to see who wields the nimblest needle at the Silver Springs Entertainment & Arts Quilt Show on Oct. 7 at the Silver Springs Elementary School.
The person who will make that judgment, Carolyn Susac, a quilter from Reno, said overall appeal of the quilt is what can make it a winner.
"It should be well-constructed and have an artistic appeal," she said. "Just basically the overall appeal of it."
Susac will not be entering her quilts - "though I would get best of show," she joked - but has entered in the past and is a champion quilter.
"I enter the major contests, quilt shows," she said. "I have one now that is being judged in Houston." She added that in April, one of her quilts won the award for best hand-workmanship at a show in Paducah, Ky.
Susac, 71, who has been quilting for 12 years, has garnered quite a few ribbons and prize money. She teaches dimensional flower-making and will be teaching a class at the quilt show.
She prefers Baltimore album quilts, which require a very difficult appliqué. "Many quilters do traditional piece work, but I'm an appliquér," she said, explaining that most appliqué is hand-stitched, though some is done by machine. She tends to stay with the wall quilt, she said, avoiding the smaller pieces.
The most popular style of quilt is impossible to say, Susac said. "Today's quilters are into many areas; the art quilts are very popular, the innovative quilts as well as the traditional."
Organizer Emma Sylvester of Silver Springs said there were categories for just about any type of quilt, including regular, machine-stitched, appliqué, art quilts and wall hangings.
Sylvester, who said the show was in its 14th year, said the number of quilts has doubled since its inception.
"When we started out at the McAtee Building, I had 50 quilts," she said. "Last year, we had a good hundred."
In addition to the entries, there will be antique quilts on display.
"We'll have quilts at least 100 years old," she said. "I once put one in that was made in New York, a crazy quilt made of silk. And last year, we had an antique quilt that came from Hawaii that was made of bark, and it was beautiful."
Though Sylvester is also a quilter, she said she might enter a wall hanging, rather than a full-size quilt.
"I don't have the time to do big quilts because I work all the time," the caregiver and housekeeper said.
If you go
WHAT: 2006 Fiber Arts/Quilt Show
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 7
WHERE: Silver Springs Elementary School, 3900 Spruce Ave., Silver Springs
ENTRY/VENDOR DEADLINE: Today
CALL: Emma Sylvester at (775) 577-2588 or e-mail Hub22811@aol.com
• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111, ext. 351.