Quilter Nancy Hovis takes her art national

When Nancy Hovis starts a quilt, she doesn't always know exactly where it's going to take her.

She's been working on one of her three-dimensional, hand-embroidered quilts for the last 11 years, and now one of her quilts has won an award in a national quilt show.

“One of my quilts that was chosen, I started to hand quilt 11 years ago, and I just finished it in 2011,” Hovis said.

Hovis first entered two quilts in Kent and Sussex quilt shows, taking first prizes for both of them. Those wins prompted her quilts into a national quilt show. “You have to send pictures of the quilts and say a little bit about them,” Hovis said.

Each of Hovis’s quilts mean something. One quilt’s block shows a fountain with cups on each side. She says the image means “drink water instead of wine.” The image was designed during Prohibition, when selling alcohol in the United States was illegal. Another block shows Hovis's whole family. There are also blocks with old-fashioned sayings and symbols of wealth and prosperity. “I printed the sayings and the information about my family on the computer, then took the block and laid the printing on my light box and traced it all,” Hovis said.

The show is being held Feb. 23-26. Hovis and two of her quilting buddies planned to attend workshops conducted by some of quilting's most celebrated artists, buy some quilting supplies and look at works presented by quilters from all over the nation.

There are prizes and winners in the show, with top quilts going on to the next show. Hovis did not expect to win because of the high quality of the work on display, but she learned Friday, Feb. 24, that one of her quilts has one.  “You never know what people like,” she said.

Hovis designed two jacket patterns which she has been selling for years, but she does not sell her quilts. “This quilt was appraised at $5,000. Nobody will pay that kind of money,” said Hovis, pointing at one of her national show quilts.

Hovis donates quilts to put her skills to good use. She offered quilts for raffles at Rehoboth Beach Convention Center. “I also donate quilts for Cape Henlopen State Park, where I always work at the Chocolate Festival.”

“There is a thing with the quilters - we always have to have chocolate when we are quilting, because we all really like it,” said Hovis, smiling, “and quilters are all good cooks. I have never met a quilter who wasn’t a good cook.”

Many people do not realize how much work goes into each quilt, but quilters do. Sussex and Kent counties have four quilting guilds, and all of them have more than 100 members. Ocean Waves Quilt Guild in Lewes, where Hovis is a member, has more than 200 quilters. Every other year, Kent County and Sussex County guilds get together to have a big show; the next one will be in October 2013. “You will see some really beautiful quilts there. Our quilters are wonderful,” Hovis said.

Before Hovis and her family moved to Lewes, she taught counted cross-stitch. “Then I got tired of cross-stitching and decided to take quilting lessons at Mare’s Bears Quilt Shop. That’s how I got started,” Hovis said.

“When they say Mare’s Bears, a lot of people think that it just sells quilts, but it really sells everything to make quilts,” Hovis said. Mare’s Bears Quilt Shop in Lewes has one of the most beautiful selections of fabrics, she said.

Hovis has four grandsons and five granddaughters, but she still quilts every day. “I have all my quilting stuff on my dining room table and on my counter in the kitchen, and I do not have a sewing room,” Hovis said.

Quilters always say that they never have enough time, because they have enough material to last them for the rest of their lives. When one of them dies, they often leave their material to a charity that makes quilts, so the fabric will be used. The quilters call their fabric “our stash” and everywhere they go, they buy new supplies. “I have two double closets and blanket boxes filled with material under my beds,” Hovis said, “and there are hundreds of projects I have waiting for me.”