Cowichan Valley quilts bundled up for a big international tour

One of Joy Hegglund’s America-bound prize quilts.

An Asian garden featuring a teahouse, koi in a pond and a lady in beautiful gown; a surreal landscape, featuring a river flowing through a sun-kissed canyon; a kaleidoscope of colours in a pattern reminiscent of a cut-out paper snowflake.

What do these designs have in common? They're the patterns of three quilts made in the Cowichan Valley that will tour the United States later this year.

And designers and quilters Joy Hegglund and Annelise Massey will be among a group of seven travelling to Houston Texas in November to see their quilts on display.

The quilts are part of the exhibit O Canada that will be shown in four-day displays in Cincinnati, Ohio, in April; Long Beach, California in July and Houston Texas in November. The Canadian quilt display will also hang alongside the Houston International Quilt Festival's annual competitive show in November that last year attracted more than 60,000 visitors.

"These will be well traveled quilts," says Crofton's Hegglund. "I'm mailing mine today. It has to be in Houston by mid-March."

"It's a real honour to be selected," said Massey, who lives just west of Duncan.

Between shows the quilts will be stored in Houston.

When news of the exhibit hits their computers, both women sent photographs of their work to the selection committee.

Hegglund, who stared quilting 12 years ago after seeing a quilted dressing-gown she admired, sent in pictures of two examples.

"They chose both," she exclaims.

The first, made several years ago and featured in the book Ricky Tims Rhapsody Quilts measures 50 in x 50 in, and is comprised of wedges, mostly in green and blue. Hegglund describes the other, a smaller quilt measuring 28 in x 34 in, as a surreal landscape. In it, a dominant sun spreads golden light on canyon walls between which cascade a blue river.

Finished last August, the quilt has recently arrived home from a show in California.

"They chose the second one I sent," smiles Massey of her beautiful Asian-inspired garden design, measuring 66 in x 64 in. Massey crafted the quilt in 2008, and it has been displayed several times in the valley. Three panels - teahouse, koi and oriental-gowned woman - spring from a symbolic garden scattered with blooms overlaying a diagonal criss-cross design.

Hegglund started quilting 12 years ago and belongs to a quilting group that meets weekly at Duncan's Creative Quilting on York Road.

"And I work two days a week so I can afford my addiction," she smiles.

The group scheduled to travel to Houston in November booked their trip before they knew of the selection of the three local quilts for the Canadian exhibit.

They look forward to seeing the whole exhibition - and their quilts, say Hegglund and Massey.