A local quilter, 6-year-old Henry Webb, has been chosen to have one of his quilts featured in an international modern quilt show in Nashville this week.
QuiltCon 2019, which begins this Thursday, February 21st, and runs through Sunday, February 24th, will be exhibiting Henry’s quilt alongside the works of 400 quilters, who were selected from a pool of more than 1,700 entries.
Henry got into quilting a year ago when he noticed a hole in his baby quilt and wanted to figure out how to make a new one. “He discovered it was cloth, batting, and cloth,” says his mother Erin. “He then built his own rough estimation of a quilt using cloth and felt he had in his room.”
Henry had been learning to hand-sew, but he wanted to make the process a little bit easier, so he asked Santa for a sewing machine. “Santa brought the machine and a coupon for a lesson,” says Erin.
He then finished his first quilt, which he named Fall. “Fall was created with fabric by Kaffe Fassett that he really liked,” says Erin. “It is bright and bold. He loves fabric and has very clear ideas of what he wants.”
Henry and his mother, who both take quilting lessons so they can learn together, found out about QuiltCon through their sewing teacher and submitted Fall to the competition to be juried by modern quilters. The quilt was accepted and chosen to be judged under the youth category at the quilt show. Henry’s quilt will be displayed among nearly 400 other quilts in 12 categories that include piecing, quilting, handwork, appliqué, and more.
Erin says this is Henry’s first competition and that he would like to enter his second quilt, made of material he got at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house in Missouri, in a competition at Delta Fair this fall. “This quilt is more traditional with modern twists like contemporary calico and thinner binding,” says Erin. Henry is now in the process of creating his third quilt.