Exeter Show society secretary Sharon Hjort with the centenary show quilt. Picture: PETER SANDERS
A QUILT commissioned for the 100th Exeter Show on Saturday, February 23, will go on permanent display after the event as a tribute to the once great apple industry in the Tamar Valley.
Show society secretary Sharon Hjort said the quilt, more than two metres wide, would be put into a blackwood frame and was a special feature at this year's centenary Exeter Show.
``After the show it will go on display at the Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre for visitors to enjoy. It will only come out for the show each year,'' she said.
Created by Shearwater textile artist and quilter Marlene King, the work features a central image of an apple packing shed at Gravelly Beach that appeared in ifThe Examiner's Weekly Courier magazine in 1913.
Apple box labels from the era surround the image.
In 2011, Mrs King won the viewers' choice award and was placed second in the innovative section of the International Quilt Festival, in Houston, US, with her work Travels.
She said the Exeter Show quilt took several months to create.
``When I saw the picture they wanted to use I thought, `how am I going to do this','' Mrs King said.
``A lot of the material around today wasn't suitable.''
She said some of the more challenging sections were the fabric for the women's dresses and the apples in the cases that had been wrapped in white tissue paper.
The first Exeter Show was organised by the Tamar Farmers and Fruit Growers Association on Wednesday, April 5, 1911.
With a brief break during World War II the show has been held every year since.
