It was a warm and stormy night inside the Long Beach Convention Center on Saturday when three top quilters faced off to compete for the title of Iron Quilter at the International Quilt Festival. The challenge was sponsored by BERNINA of America.
Charlotte Angotti, Debbie Caffrey and Gyleen X. Fitzgerald, each armed with drinks and rotary cutters (don’t try this at home, folks), assembled teams of four assistants each (with our very own Tech Editor Vicki Tymczyszyn on Charlotte’s team) to help construct a complete quilt top in 75 minutes from fabric thrown at them by those clever and torture-lovin’ folks at Quilts Inc.
The evening’s festivities also included an audience Show and Tell, cash bar and prize giveaways from various companies, including Hoffman California Fabrics, Michael Miller Fabrics, Moda Fabrics, Northcott, Martingale, Kai Scissors, Mistyfuse, Oliso Irons and Pellon USA. BERNINA also gave away a grand prize of a BERNINA 550 QE machine.
Our very own Vicki with her swag bag from the Iron Quilter Challenge.
The IQ event was first held last spring at Festival’s Cincinnati stop. There, Charlotte and Debbie were joined by John Flynn and Wendy Butler Berns in a showdown to become the best of the best. Debbie won the contest with a gorgeous star quilt, but the pranks and antics during the competition really set the stage for the Long Beach rematch. According to rumors, Debbie finished her quilt well before Charlotte and then heckled her best bud for the remainder of the contest. It’s been reported the heckling involved some missing rotary rulers and taunts thrown at Charlotte with offers to help the flailing team.
Debbie Caffrey's winning quilt from the first Iron Quilter Challenge held in Cincinnati last Spring. The quilts from both Iron Quilter Challenges will be raffled off to raise money for the Texas Quilt Museum.
Charlotte, coming into the Long Beach event, was not going to be outdone for a second time.
Share the juice, Charlotte!
She readied her team with a sort-of clear plan and lots of red wine, which only Charlotte seemed to have the time to enjoy, while her four q-minions worked tirelessly to shape the Moda collection given to them into a presentable quilt.
Debbie, meanwhile, seemed to take a second victory for granted. Given a Northcott collection of outer space-themed novelty prints, her crew worked some cross blocks around a panel and called it done early on. Then Debbie popped the corks on some champagne and tried to get the other two teams (who were still stitching away at their blocks) to join in the celebration.
Debbie pops the cork.
As the only newcomer to the set, Gyleen’s inner Rocky came out fierce and fighting, intent as she was on making a wonderful art quilt in the time allowed. But even with her q-minions dedicated stitching and pressing (note the bare footsies from Gyleen’s team, indicating the total immersion into their leader’s commitment to win), she lacked the competition experience to catch and surpass Charlotte’s mission to win.
By the end of the night, after several dancing breaks by audience members and lots more spirits and snacks, the winner was pronounced by a show of marbles indicating the audience’s favorite quilt. Charlotte and her team had finally prevailed, beating back Debbie and her team to show all who was really the Iron Quilter.
The quilt tops produced during the Long Beach and Cincinnati Iron Quilter Challenges will be finished and auctioned off in November during Houston Festival to benefit the Texas Quilt Museum.
From left Gyleen, Debbie and Charlotte. Charlotte's quilt was the winner for the night, setting the stage for next Festival's SmackDown!
Rumor has it that while Houston won’t be the setting for the next Iron Quilter Showdown, there will continue to be an Iron Quilter event. Stay tuned for the next time this humble reporter brings you the latest updates from the Iron Quilter Challenge.
(As a side note, we’d like to say that this was the last year the International Quilt Festival would be held in Long Beach. Quilts Inc. has instead replaced this show with a new show to be held in Portland, Oregon, next August called Quilt! Knit! Stitch! While we will sorely miss having Festival in our backyard, we look forward to this new show and its nod to the other stitching forms we obsess over!)
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That sounds like SO much fun! I wish I could have been there to see the whole spectacle. I hope that someone posts more pictures – I’d like to see Gyleen’s quilt from a better angle. Kudos to all the teams!