Hundreds of quilters and quilting aficionados converged on the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds Saturday to help kick off the 20th annual Gathering of Quilters event.

Held on the 20th anniversary of National Quilting Day, Saturday’s event was the first in the celebration’s 20-year history to feature multiple host guilds.

Featured guilds at the event included the Maple Leaf Quilters of Goshen, the Artful Quilters of Nappanee, the Heartland Quilters Guild of Elkhart, and the Extension Homemakers Club of Elkhart County.

According to Elkhart County Extension Educator Mary Ann Lienhart-Cross, the event is typically hosted by only one guild each year, though some issues with planning this year resulted in multiple groups teaming up to make the event happen.

“In the 20 years that the gatherings have happened in Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan, it has always been one guild by themselves,” Lienhart-Cross said. “It was my idea this year to see if we could get the guilds to work with the Extension Homemakers to pull this off, because nobody was going to do it.”

And it appears that plan was a success, as more than 700 pre-registration and general admission tickets had already been sold when the doors opened at 8 a.m.

“We’re also seeing a lot of door traffic today with people buying tickets, so it’s been very, very successful,” Lienhart-Cross said.

With a full seven hours of planned activities, stage shows, speakers and demonstrations, event hosts Saturday had no trouble keeping their visitors entertained.

“We had keynote speaker Brenda Papadakis, author of the Civil War quilt book “Dear Jane.” We debuted the Vera Bradley Breast Cancer Foundation quilt. We’re having individuals do bed turning, which is storytelling where you stack up a bunch of quilts and then tell the story behind each one,” Lienhart-Cross said. “We also have a quilt show with over 200 quilts belonging to our local guild members, and we have a vendor’s mall that has 24 vendors from all over the area.”

As an added treat, the event also featured a special grouping of quilts by local guild members influenced by the 1863 Civil War-era sampler quilt by Jane Stickle featured in Papadakis’ book.

Attendees of Saturday’s quilt show were also allowed to touch and handle the quilts with provided plastic gloves — a rarity among similar quilt shows, which tend to keep onlookers at a distance.

According to Maple Leaf Quilters member Carol Honderick, it is exactly this type of friendly, inviting, hands-on approach which resulted in the event’s theme: “Elkhart County, Where Quilting Warms the Heart.”

“When we started meeting about nine to 10 months ago, we talked a lot about the economic situation of Elkhart County, and what it is that brings us joy, and brings us hope when things are down,” Honderick said. “For quilters, that can be quilting. There’s something about seeing these quilts hanging here that kind of feeds the soul.

“So we talked about how we felt about seeing quilts, how we felt about being together with our friends, and this community especially, with its Amish roots and tradition of quilting,” Honderick continued. “People travel from all over to try and soak up that environment, so the theme kind of encompasses all of those things — the feelings and the ideas and that rich history.”

Lienhart-Cross was of a similar opinion.

“The whole idea of the event is to bring in people who enjoy fabric, and who enjoy quilting, and strengthening that fellowship,” Leinhart-Cross said. “It’s National Quilting Day, and that’s how the gathering was started over 20 years ago, to bring people together and to show the fellowship of fabric and all the things you can do with it and what it can do for you.”

What’s more, all of the event’s proceeds go toward the assistance of local and national charities.

“All of our quilt guilds are not-for-profit,” Honderick said, “so the money we’re making from this event is all going to go to various charities here and around the country.”

For South Bend quilter Michelle Wilson, Saturday’s Gathering of Quilters event was the first she’d been able to attend in many years, and one that did not disappoint.

“I belong to the River Bend Quilt Guild in South Bend-Mishawaka, and the gathering is usually not as close by, so I definitely wanted to come up to hear Brenda speak, because our guild has a group of ‘Dear Jane’ quilters,” Wilson said. “I also love to come out and see what other people are doing. It inspires me to have new ideas and to sit down and keep working, because for me, quilting is more than just a hobby. It’s a way of expressing, of being an artist and expressing my inner creativity.”

Wilson said she particularly liked the variety of quilts available for viewing at the event.

“The variety of quilts are really inspiring,” Wilson said. “There are a lot of different skill levels represented, which is nice, because I think for people who are just beginning, it’s nice to see where they can start, and for the people who are more experienced, they get to see where they can take their artistic skills to the next level. So there really is something for everyone.”