The 51st Annual Kalona Quilt Show and Sale will take place April 28-30, 2022 in the Kalona YMCA gym, which will be transformed to showcase over 200 unique hand-quilted pieces for sale.

It’s unique that all the quilts will be hand-quilted — most other quilt shows in the area, such as the Iowa State Fair, will display a mixture of machine and hand-quilted pieces.

“There’s a lot of machine quilting and a lot of different machines and they do beautiful work, too, but we still stick with the hand-quilting and want to for as long as we can,” said Katie Karnes, owner of Woodin Wheel, who puts on the quilt show every year.

“The first show began way back in the 1970s, so it’s a timeless thing that continues on. It’s always amazing to see what old quilts we get from the 1860s and 1880s, and the new ones where you can see the new patters and new styles and what’s popular now. Each year it changes and every year there are different spectacular quilts,” Karnes said.

There’s something for everybody at the Kalona Quilt Show and Sale — some small wall hangings will cost about $100, while other special quilts might cost over $10,000.

“Some of the antique quilts you can get a good deal on, for $200-$300, but some of those are even up in the thousands,” Karnes said. “The antique Amish cribs, those are the rare ones, and those will bring $2,000 to $5,000 for a small piece, but it’s because of the pattern and the age and the uniqueness of it. They’re harder to come by.”

Karnes said quilting is a labor of love — the quilters whose pieces end up in the show work year-round, putting countless hours into their craft.

Karnes is not a quilter herself but starting working the Marilyn Woodin when she was in high school. She loves to sell quilts because she wants to continue the tradition of quilting that is so integral and important to Kalona’s heritage and culture.

“It’s just like being an art collector. I just enjoy it and am in awe of the process of how it goes, how they do it, how much work they put into it,” Karnes said. “We’ve sold many quilts to other quilters because they see a piece and think, ‘I’m not going to make that for that price,’ so they’ll buy other quilters work, too, because they may use different patterns and techniques from what they do. There’s so much variety and value in all the different quilts.”

The Kalona Quilt Show and Sale brings visitors from all over the country and all over the world to Kalona — be one of them by visiting the show this year!