Blueberry Arts Festival 2010

The Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council held its annual Blueberry Arts Festival on Saturday, August 7. Once again for our third year, Pam and I had a booth selling handmade quilted table runners, wall-hangings, quilt pins, and crocheted snowflake ornaments. This year the weather was cool and damp, but it didn't prevent the crowds of local residents and cruise ship tourists from attending and enjoying this big community event.

The festival hosted 99 booths in the State Building parking garage in downtown Ketchikan. Most booths were selling a wide variety locally-made art and craft items. Other booths offered games for children, such as bean-bag tosses, and there was a slideshow of the different events sponsored by the Arts Council throughout the year. In one of the downtown parking lots many food booths were set up selling all sorts of mouth-watering treats, sponsored by several organizations including the Coast Guard.

Different festival activities included a 5K Blueberry Run, blueberry pie eating contests, and slug races! Of course, there was plenty of blueberry cotton candy and blueberry popcorn!

Sarah and Pat at our booth.

Pam in front of one of her beautiful American flag wall-hangings.

Table runners, crocheted snowflake ornaments,
heart and log cabin quilt pins.

Sarah used blue crayons to color a coloring-book page and wrote the words "Welcome to the Blueberry Festival" which she displayed at our booth. She also told people "you can choose whatever you want" from the items we were selling. Sarah was a great hostess!

Chris had his photo taken with Alaska's Governor Sean Parnell
in front of the Coast Guard food booth.

Ketchikan's Annual Quilt Show

The "Rainy Day Quilters" guild held its annual quilt show on February 20, 2010, at the community center in Saxman. It was an incredible display of (local) talent, artistry, and inspiration. We look forward to attending the quilt show every year. These photos give just a small glimpse of some amazing quilts.

Beaautiful sunrise or sunsets...or lilies in a pond (wall-hanging).

A fabric village scene.

Little boy blue...fishing (wall-hanging).

Children's quilted jackets.

Fishing in Alaska (wall-hanging).

The stitching on the back was just as interesting as these blocks on the front.

What happened when Santa and his reindeer went to a photo booth...
(This photo of the wall-hanging is three photos pieced together)

A wonderful little backpack (batik fabrics)

Beautiful circles of blue quilt.

(detail close-up of the quilt of circles of blue)

Another circular design - very bright and colorful.

The warm earth-tones were wonderful in this quilt.

Blueberry Arts Festival 2008

Ketchikan’s annual Blueberry Arts Festival enjoyed sunny weather and a continuous crowd of people coming by all day long. It was held in the indoor/outdoor parking garage of the State Courthouse Building. We shared in the making of quilted table toppers (runners and squares), small wall hangings, and Pam’s crocheted snowflake ornaments. Pam’s quilted American flag was hung as a backdrop to our booth. The American flag quilt was not for sale but there were some inquiries from a few people who were very interested in it.

During the early afternoon Uncle Chris and little Sara decided to spend sometime together at a local place called Rotory Beach. We spent our time exploring the tidal pools and and attempting to make a sand castle. Sara really liked learning about the little sea creatures swimming around the tidal pools as well as the plants in the surrounding area. She enjoyed herself so much it was hard for us to pull away to finish off the Blueberry Festival with mom and Aunt Pat.

Blueberry Winner!

In preparation for the 2007 Blueberry Arts Festival, the local Arts Council holds an annual t-shirt and festival logo design contest. Blueberry Arts Festival t-shirts are a cherished and collected memento from each year's summer festival. Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council gives out a cash prize which is awarded to the creator of the chosen design. This year we submitted several designs for which the above design was chosen by the Arts Council. We are very excited that our design was chosen this year.

The Blueberry Arts Festival in Ketchikan is held on the first weekend of August, celebrating summer and blueberries. Over 7000 Ketchikan- area residents, cruiseship passeners and independent travelers attend this festival that features local and visiting artists, community organizations, gourmet food and blueberry delicacies, games, performing arts and visual arts demonstrations. Traditional Blueberry activities include the Blueberry Juried Art Show of work by area visual artists at the Mainstay Gallery, the Fun Run sponsored by the Ketchikan Runners Club, a slug race and slug weigh-in, a Trivia Contest sponsored by the Friends of the Library, a Spelling Bee, a Blueberry Pie Eating Contest co-sponsored by Tatsuda's IGA and WestCoast Cape Fox Lodge, and the Blueberry Battle of the Bands (a great turn out of bands), and the Best Blueberry Dish Contest.

Hope to see you all there.