Scheduled for March 17-20 at the Clarion Hotel and Convention Center in Minot, it will be the 27th annual festival, featuring classes and lectures all four days of the festival, and on Friday and Saturday, March 17 and 18, a quilt display and 11 vendors, including local and out-of-state quilt shops.

This is the festival’s second year at the Clarion. In previous years, the event was held at the Grand Hotel in Minot until it required more space.

“We are one of the largest events. I can easily say that we are the largest quilt show in North Dakota,” said Chelce Detert, chairman of the festival board.

Detert said the festival expects to have about 200 quilts entries in 14 different categories and anticipates close to 1,000 people attending. Kate Eelkema of Minnetonka, Minnesota, will judge the quilt show. Eelkema is a member of the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges.

Submitted Photo Festival-goers mingle among quilt displays at the 2019 Minot Prairie Quilt Festival. The 2020 and 2021 festivals were canceled due to the pandemic.

New York-based Sue Beevers, painter, fabric artist, quilt designer, author, cellist, and teacher at Hamilton College, is the festival’s national instructor. Beever has appeared as a guest artist twice on HGTV’s “Simply Quilts.” Thirteen other instructors from North Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana will teach techniques and deliver lectures over the long weekend.

“The classes are from beginner level to advanced level. They’re from all different types of things from either sewing or just a lecture or what we call a trunk show, which is when someone brings in a whole bunch of their quilts, and they show them and they talk about them,” said Jackie Slagle, co-chair of the festival board and the featured guild instructor of the festival.

Over the four days, there are 36 classes scheduled, including Color Theory for Quilters, Creating a Design Wall, How Quilts Work, and A Pattern is Just a Suggestion, where the instructor will teach how to make both small and major adjustments to quilt patterns.

The Minot Prairie Quilt Festival board consists of 22 Minot Prairie Quilt Guild members. The guild itself has over 150 members. Slagle, who has been involved in the guild since the early 2000s, said that she has seen demographics of members evolve over the years to include younger people.

“That’s what’s exciting to me. I think that’s what we’re striving for, is to get new blood,” Slagle said. “Just getting people of different demographics can really expand the whole guild and the ideas and the way of doing things and just the partnership of learning from each other, and I think the support and partnership is what’s really important.”

Detert added that quilting is about creativity and the art of craft, and it’s not just the traditional quilting circle of days-gone-by.

“A lot of people, when they hear quilting, think of little old grandma’s sitting around in a quilting circle, and we’re not in the 1800s anymore. This is a way for people to share their creativity,” she said. “The creation portion of it is you’re taking different fabrics, and you’re creating something and you can visually see what you’ve just done. It’s rewarding to be able to see that, so it’s not something that’s just and older demographic.”

The festival also acts as a chance for the guild to show some of their functions in the community. They added a booth this year to highlight the community service portion of their organization. Slagle and Detert said that the guild provides quilts to squad cars, scraps for dog beds at shelters, and weighted blankets for children with sensory issues.

The festival will also include a tea room, daily meals for those who register ahead of time, and a banquet Saturday night where there will be door prizes, one of which is a sewing machine.

Public admission to the festival is $5 with no charge for children under 12. The hours for the quilt show and vendors is Friday, March 18, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Class registration forms and quilt show entry forms are available on MinotQuilters.com along with a copy of the festival catalog that details class information. Class numbers are limited. Registration forms can be emailed to festivalregistration@minotquilters.com To register for the quilt show, contact Judi Green at 701-340-5807 by Thursday, March 10.