photo by: Contributed Photo

A Kansas Senate resolution from 2019 proclaiming Baldwin City as the Quilt Capital of Kansas.

Of course, the inaugural Ugly Sweater Fun Run in Baldwin City is a chance to show off your most audacious holiday attire. But it’s also Baldwin City’s chance to show off a title it wears proudly: Quilt Capital of Kansas.

The southern Douglas County community has had that designation since 2019, when the Kansas Senate actually approved a resolution on it. But many people don’t know about that, said Jeannette Blackmar, director of Baldwin City’s Lumberyard Arts Center. So, the center has been working to hold all sorts of textile-related events – fashion shows, classes, a weekly sewing bee, and now Dec. 13’s fun run – to get the word out.

“I think people aren’t aware,” she said.

You might have heard something similar a few years back if you talked to the person who came up with the Quilt Capital of Kansas idea in the first place, Sharon Vesecky. She’s a fourth-generation quilter and the owner of the Quilter’s Paradise store, which has been in business since 1989, and there was a time when her shop wasn’t getting as much attention as she would have liked.

“Well, my quilt shop seemed to be the best-kept secret in Douglas County,” Vesecky said. “I had a lot of people, after I’d been here for years, tell me, ‘I had no idea there was a quilt shop in town.'”

What she really wanted was signage on the highway, she said, but she found out it wasn’t that easy to get a road sign advertising your business. Then one day, on a drive on the interstate, an idea occurred to her.

“We were driving down I-70 one day, and I saw the signs at Wilson, proclaiming Wilson to be the Czech capital of Kansas. And I knew Lindsborg was the Swedish capital,” she said.

“And it just hit me: If we have a Czech capital and we have a Swedish capital, why not a quilt capital?”

She and Blackmar considered the idea for a few years, she said, and then they finally took the step of pitching it to their state senator at the time, Sen. Tom Holland. “And, well, that was OK with him,” Vesecky said.

Holland sponsored the resolution, which was full of facts about quilting in Baldwin City – about the Maple Leaf Quilters’ Guild, the long-running Maple Leaf Festival quilt show, even a relationship with a sister city in South Africa involving the exchange of quilts.

“The Senate thought it was enough that we could be the quilt capital,” Vesecky said.

Since then, Vesecky’s shop and the Lumberyard Arts Center have done a number of collaborations involving quilting and textile arts. The first one, Vesecky said, was making face masks at the start of the COVID pandemic.

“Jeannette got a grant for the materials, and we had volunteers making face masks,” she said. They figured out a system to get the materials safely to the volunteers, who sewed them at home and brought them back to the Lumberyard Arts Center.

“We made thousands of those,” Vesecky said. And “from there, we just kept coming up with other ideas of how we could help each other.”

One idea was holding textile classes at the Lumberyard Arts Center. Blackmar said it was a natural fit, given that Vesecky’s shop doesn’t really have a space suitable for that.

“She has nearly 5,000 bolts of fabric; she didn’t have space for classes,” Blackmar said. “So we, as a multidisciplinary arts center, look to grow our offerings to include textile arts. We became the home, the physical home, for the classes, and we have a space for that.”

Vesecky also said that every Wednesday the center has a “sewing/quilting/embroidery bee” where people can bring whatever textile project they’re currently working on.

She’s not involved with everything that the Lumberyard Arts Center does related to the Quilting Capital of Kansas moniker, but Vesecky is impressed with the new ideas that it’s generating.

“I’m well past retirement age, and I can only do so much,” she said. “But the young ladies who are interested in this program have taken the idea and run with it.”

That’s literally what Blackmar hopes people will do at the Ugly Sweater Fun Run.

She said the center wanted to hold a fundraising event when it heard that National Endowment for the Arts grants might not be secure going forward. A textile-related event with “ugly sweaters and the holiday season, we thought that was a really cute fit,” she said.

The all-ages run/walk won’t be timed, and people are encouraged to wear their loudest holiday sweaters – Blackmar said dogs are welcome, too, as long as they’re leashed. A special area will be set aside for kids’ “reindeer games” in Sullivan Square, the green space next to the center, and there will be awards for the best sweaters for individuals, families and pets.

The center has been working to get people interested in doing their own sweater projects since this summer – though Blackmar admits, laughing, that it’s “really hard” to get people thinking about ugly sweaters in July.

The creative clothes won’t be the only artsy touch. The first 100 people to register will get a mug made by one of the center’s volunteers when they finish the run.

“After the run, you get a handmade mug, and they’re all different,” she said. “And then you fill it up with hot cocoa.”

photo by: Contributed Photo

Some of the mugs that have already been completed for the Ugly Sweater Fun Run.

The Ugly Sweater Fun Run is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Lumberyard Arts Center, 718 High St., with check-in at 9 a.m. Through the end of November, people can register for the run for $30, and it’s $35 after that; kids 12 and under can participate for free. You can sign up at lumberyardartscenter.org/ugly-sweater-fun-run.

Blackmar said she really wants people to understand that this is an arts event, not just a typical run or walk. And she’s excited to see the creativity on display.

“We’re really hoping that people come out with their ugliest sweater,” she said.