Annual Needle Art & Quilt Show set to kick off Friday
drawing, crewel, plastic canvas, T his year's Lampasas Needle Art & Quilt Show's Stitches in Time features an artistic lineup of contributors displaying everything from handmade ornaments to antique quilts.

Zell Cook, a featured exhibitor at the annual show, displays her variation on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt pattern. She uses ink and embroidery on her quilts.

The show is Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day at the Lampasas County Courthouse, Lampasas County Office Building and Keystone Square Museum.

Admission is $5 for adults, and $3 for children under 12.

The event is the key fundraiser for the museum. A bake sale, raffles, People's Choice awards, demonstrations and vendors will be available, according to Joyce Lucas, this year's show chairman.

The show will feature a variety of artistry from area craftsmen displaying a large number of items that range from tatting to knitting and embroidery to doll-making. There will be crochet, painting, charcoal rug-hooking, smocking, cross stitch, needlepoint, applique, fabric figures, quilts and other forms of art on display.

Special artists also will be featured: fabric artist Zell Cook, ornament maker Karen Glasscock, and Beth Hightower and the Lometa Quilting Club.

Ms. Cook has been quilting most of her life. She first learned the craft from her mother, but it wasn't until the 1980s when her sister took a quilting course that she really began in earnest.

While holding down a job as a hospital administrator, she found time to complete some projects. After her retirement in 2000, quilting has become her focus.

Ms. Cook has taught in Kingsland, Round Rock and Georgetown, and is eager to learn new techniques to share with others.

Her current interest of incorporating inks and embroidery into quilting will be demonstrated at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each of the two show days. She also will offer a sign-up sheet for those interested in classes at a later date.

Samples of Ms. Cook's quilts will be on view at the show.

Also to be highlighted are Beth Hightower and the Lometa Quilting Club, which gathers regularly at Lometa Baptist Church fellowship hall to cut, sew, tie and quilt. The group has created finished quilts for Lometa schoolchildren in need, for the Williams House in Lometa, Child Protective Services in Lampasas County and for families in crisis.

Mrs. Hightower, a longtime member of the Lometa club, has quilted since age 12 when she learned from her mother. She grew up at Camp Hood where her grandmother had a farm, but she later moved to Lometa where she met her future husband.

Until 15 years ago, Mrs. Hightower made many of her traditional quilts by machine-piecing and hand-quilting. Then she began making blue-jean quilts decorated with machine-appliqued animals.

In addition to working with the Lometa club, Mrs. Hightower has made quilts and donated them to organizations for use as fund-raisers, including a quilt raffled by the Lometa Rodeo Association in memory of her husband's brother.

In creating her showpiece quilt, Mrs. Hightower researched brands used in Lampasas County, and her sister, Jo Taylor, machine-embroidered a brand on each block on the quilt. Mrs. Taylor does all of Mrs. Hightower's machine-embroidery. Mrs. Hightower makes all her quilts on a Singer treadle sewing machine. She also crochets afghans and doilies.

Her sewing machine and quilts, along with images of the Lometa Quilting Club, will be featured at the upcoming show.

The artistry of Karen Glasscock also will be on display during the two-day event.

Ms. Glasscock grew up in Lampasas and has been an active quilter and needle artist for many years. Her handmade Christmas ornaments will be displayed this weekend at the museum.

She has been practicing needle art for many years. She crocheted the angel and tree skirt for her tree, and made all the sequined ornaments. The entire Christmas tree will be on display at the museum.

A quilter since 2001 after being introduced to the art by a friend, Ms. Glasscock has been creating quilts and wall hangings for her family. Each is personalized with the recipient's choice of fabric. Several of the quilts she made for family members will be exhibited at the Lampasas County Courthouse.

Also on view at the museum will be the Cox-Coker collection of antique quilts, on loan from Carol and Bob Wright.

Buena Vista Coker Cox and Mary Emma Crow Coker are the maternal grandmother and great-grandmother of Robert Wright III of Lampasas.

Wright's wife, Carol Northington Wright, also a Lampasas native, served on the Needle Art & Quilt Show Committee for many years and was taken with the quilts when she and her husband discovered them, she said.

The collection of 24 quilts dates from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, made by homemakers, mothers and wives of farmers who lived in the rural communities of Victoria (near Mart) and Prairie Hill.

A popular feature of the annual show is the raffles. Tickets -- at $1 each or six for $5 -- are on sale at Lampasas Art Gallery, Hodges & Sargent Pharmacy, Cattles Pharmacy, Lampasas Cleaners and Hoffpauir Chevrolet. They are available during the show at the courthouse.

This year, three items will be raffled: an afghan made by Susan Detrick, a quilt made by Mrs. Lucas and a knit, beaded purse made by Phyllis Poehlmann.

Mrs. Detrick, a member of the Needle Art and Quilt Show Committee, has been quilting and creating needle art for many years. The afghan she donated for the raffle is large and crocheted in the "delicate diamonds" pattern surrounded by lacy fans. It measures 60x76 inches and is a rich sage green, cream and light tan.

Mrs. Lucas donated a stack-andwhack kaleidoscope quilt in deep purples and greens that measures 51x51 inches. The Patch Work Pal Quilters provided the hand-quilting.

Mrs. Poehlmann is a Lometabased needle artist. She donated a black beaded evening handbag that measures six by eight inches. The knit bag has a gold metal clasp and an arm-length gold chain.

Mrs. Poehlmann also will be a vendor at the annual show.

All three raffle items can be viewed at Lampasas Art Gallery on downtown Courtyard Square.

For show information, phone the museum at 556-2224 or e-mail naq07@pgrb.com.