QUILT SHOW SHARES ELEGANT WORKS OF ART

For national award winner Hazel Williams Canny of Houston, Texas, quilts are more than blankets. They are works of arts.

Canny, who was born in Parma and grew up in the Chaffee area, was the featured guest quilt artist for the weekend quilt show sponsored by the River Heritage Quilters' Guild. The show ended Sunday afternoon.

Canny was self-taught, so many of the earliest quilts that she started making 25 years ago were, in her own words, very crude and hardly worthy of the name of art.

Yet, even then, Canny wanted to do something artistic.

"But I always thought that to be an artist I had to do something with a paint and brush," she said.

After her husband died Canny moved from Chaffee to Houston 13 years ago to be closer to two of her children.

When she got to Houston, Canny found less opportunities to paint, but more opportunities to continue her quilting. She continued to quilt more and more.

Seven years ago, she began taking quilting classes, learning not only fine techniques of the art, but learning how to design her own quilting patterns.

"You have to be original, to be innovative in order to win in competitions," she said.

And win she has.

Every quilt she has made since that time -- about two a year -- has won ribbons and awards at contests throughout the United States. Some of the quilts have even been exhibited internationally, in France and Austria.

Last year, one of her quilts won the $5,000 Founders Award at the prestigious Houston International Quilt Festival, the largest quilt festival in the world.

"It's not just a little old ladies' game any more," Canny said. "Now it's an art form."

"Many young women create some absolutely gorgeous quilts. And men. Some of the most valuable quilts are created by men," she said.

Canny's own award-winning quilt -- a whole cloth or white on white quilt -- was one of seven quilts designed and constructed by Canny that were on display at the quilt show.

The show featured more than 100 quilted entries from three states. Many of the quilts were judged as a part of the show, but others, like Canny's, were solely on exhibit.

Not everyone who constructs the quilts plans to enter them in contests or to create a work of art. For some, the quilts have a more practical purpose.

Nancy East of Cape Girardeau is the community projects chairman for the River Heritage Quilter's Guild. The projects group meets once a month to quilt blankets to give away to a number of organizations and people throughout the area.

The quilters have supplied baby quilts to Birthright and both baby and full-size quilts for the Safe House for Women. For the past five years, they have also quilted baby blankets for the first baby born in Cape Girardeau in the new year.

Some of the quilts made by the group can be found in the trunks of police and sheriff's deputy cars in Cape Girardeau and in the county.

"We call them trauma quilts and they're used by police in case of an emergency or accident," East said.

But the quilts are not used just in the immediate area.

One woman who is a member of the group had a daughter who was adopting a baby in Russia. When the daughter went to Russia to adopt her new child, she took two quilts with her to present to the Russian orphanage.

The group manages to make an average of 25 quilts a year to give away.