Mercer woman qualifies as semifinalist in national quilting show

By LARRY HOLCOMBE

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MERCER, Wis. - Jane Zillmer from Mercer, is a semifinalist for the 2020 American Quilters Society's Quilt Week national show in Paducah, Kentucky, scheduled for April 22-25, at the Schroeder Expo and Carroll Convention Center.

Zillmer has been chosen to display her quilt, Cathedral at Penn Quarter, along with 405 others in the 36th annual contest.

Three quilting authorities will judge the show awarding first, second and third place prizes in 16 categories, along with nine overall awards. Cash awards totaling $125,000 will be granted, including $20,000 for Best of Show.

Zillmer said she's been quilting for many years, starting in high school.

"I really started getting into it after I entered a show and won first place. I was like, 'Wow,'" she said.

That was a small show in Sayner.

"That was my beginning show. Before that I had made bed quilts for the house, for gifts, and I got more into the show quilts as time has gone on. That's mainly what I do now," Zillmer added.

She's been an avid sewer from a young age.

"I made all my own clothes. I've done every kind of needle work there is. My mother was a quilter. So I grew up around quilts," she said.

Zillmer designs and sews the top for the show quilts and then sends the quilts to a professional machine quilter in North Carolina.

The pattern for this quilt is her own design, that she created after a trip out East.

"I was in Washington D.C. last summer, touring around with my daughter and I took a picture of a cathedral on the street. It was in Penn Quarter," she said.

The architecture, the stone carving and the colors caught her eye. "I just said that's going to be a quilt."

From there she made a design from that picture and began working with appliques. "If you look at the picture you might say 'huh?', but it's not supposed to look exactly like it. That was my inspiration - the stone colors in the applique."

The quilt measures 59 -by-59 inches. It's not designed to be used on a bed, she said. It's built meant to be displayed, with a sleeve on the back to help it hang.

She's entered many quilt shows, but she doesn't always attend. She boxes up her quilt and sends it to the show's organizers, hoping for the best. They later return the quilt, sometimes with a prize.

"I've been in lots shows around the country and I win here and there. I've never won a big, huge prize, but I send them around to these shows," she said.

The Paducah show is one of the biggest. "I've entered about 16 times. I used to enter every year, but not that last two, so I'm excited to be back this year."

She's already passed one round of judging to even have her quilt hanging their for the next round of judging when the prizes will be determined.

"I've won some ribbons at this show, but I've never won first place," she said.

The sewing continues for Zillmer. She just finished another quilt. She said she does about one a year. "You can send it to more than one show."

"Eventually some of them hang on my walls. Got quilts on all my walls. They're not on my bed or anything."

She doesn't sell them. She says a lot of people ask, but she says she makes them for herself. "They're designs that are personal to me."

"In the beginning, in my early quilt days, before I started doing show quilts, I made quilts for everybody. All the beds had quilts and the walls had quilts and then I got into the show quilts."

She does still make quilts as gifts. "If somebody wants a quilt, I'll still make it."

She and her husband live on the Echo Lake in Mercer, where they've been full time since 2001, retiring from Thiensville. She said they've owned the place since 1991.

The trip to the Peducah show will also come with the added bonus of seeing her sister who lives in nearby Cape Girardeau, Missouri. "I stay with her and we go together."

Quilts were entered in the Paducah show from 42 states and 15 other countries. Organizers expect the show to draw more than 30,000 people.

The American Quilter's Society hosts several shows annually, each with its own quilt contest. Besides the Paducah show, AQS hosts shows in Daytona Beach, Florida; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Charleston, North Carolina.

"Extraordinary quilts are being made by today's quilters, and the contest quilts represent an extensive variety of styles, sizes and techniques. Each quilt is an intricate, creative work of art to enjoy," said AQS Founder and President Meredith Schroeder.

For more information, please go to QuiltWeek.com.