I missed the debut of the Madison County Covered Bridge Festival in 1970, but not many festivals since then. I became a quilter in 1976. By 1978, members of the Heritage Quilters, the club my friends and I had formed, were hanging quilts in the Horticulture Building at the Madison County Fairgrounds every second weekend in October. (A member’s husband slept in the dilapidated building Friday and Saturday night to watch over the quilts.)
I remember driving into town from the farm in Lincoln Township where I lived at the time, blinking back tears, I was so excited and happy. Other than my children, quilts and quilting had become the focus of my energy and my life.
The Heritage Quilters eventually disbanded, but another group, the Covered Bridge Quilters, formed locally. They hold an annual quilt show during the Iowa Quilt Festival, coming up June 4-6, 2025.
You can still see quilts during the Covered Bridge Festival—this year on Saturday and Sunday, October 13-14—at the Iowa Quilt Museum (IQM), located on the south side of the square.
A new exhibit, “Paper Work,” went up a couple of weeks ago. The subtitle, “English Paper Piecing & Foundation Piecing,” refers to patchwork construction techniques that involve paper. The two methods (nicknamed EPP and FPP) are quite different, but both produce spectacular quilts.
IQM is more of an art gallery than a traditional museum. Each exhibit is created by a guest curator with expertise in a specific genre. The invited quilts (25 to 30) are shipped in from all over the U.S., hang on the walls for three or four months, then go back to their owners. The owners might be the quilt artists who made them, collectors who specialize in a genre (such as red and white quilts), or another museum. They may have been made in the 19th century, or completed recently.
Paper Work was curated by Linzee Kull McCray of Iowa City, who also curated “Art Quilts of the Midwest,” in 2017, “Feed Sack Quilts” in 2018, and “String Theory” in 2021. Linzee has designed numerous lines of cotton prints for MODA Fabrics.
Festival hours are 9 to 5 both days. Admission is $3, or $5 for two persons. Kids 10 and under enter the festival grounds for free. Admission to the Iowa Quilt Museum is $8, $7 for senior citizens, veterans, and active military, $5 for kids 3 to 12 and students with student ID. Free for members.
Now is a good time to remind everyone that the festival was organized in the first place to honor Madison County’s unique covered bridges. The bridges were already a tourist attraction when Robert James Waller’s 1992 book, The Bridges of Madison County, became a bestselling novel, followed by the movie starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, followed by a Broadway play that toured the country.
An in-depth article published October 3 by the Des Moines Register describes the current rough state of Madison County’s remaining six bridges and the challenges of repairing them. Please read it.
Tax deductible donations for the preservation of Madison County’s Covered Bridges can be made online at www.desmoinesfoundation.org/MadisonCountyCoveredBridge. Or, make a check out to the Greater Madison County Community Foundation, with "Covered Bridge Preservation" in the memo line. Mail checks to 1217 N. 6th Ave., Suite 3, Winterset, IA 50723.
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Stunning works of art indeed.