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Show Directory
The travelling shows: 8 expo brands across 26 US cities. A guild show comes to your town once a year — an expo comes to a different town every month.
An expo is a quilt show run as a business rather than by a guild: a company books a convention centre, sells vendor booths, and puts on a class programme, then does the same thing in another city a few weeks later. That’s why an expo is the one kind of event a state-by-state directory hides from you — AQS QuiltWeek plays 5 cities a year, and looking at any single state page you would never know the other 4 existed.
The American Quilter's Society runs QuiltWeek in five cities a year, with Paducah in April the one most quilters travel for — it's the society's home show and the reason Paducah is a quilting destination the rest of the year. Judged competition, a large vendor mall, and a week of classes at each stop.
AQS QuiltWeek official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
The widest-travelling of the tours — nine cities across the year, weighted to the Midwest and Southeast. It's a classes-and-shopping show rather than a competition: you book workshops in advance, and the floor is vendors rather than a judged exhibition.
Original Sewing & Quilt Expo official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Seven stops concentrated in the West and Southwest. Smaller and shorter than the other tours, usually three days, and the most shopping-led of them — it's a vendor market with a class schedule attached rather than an exhibition.
Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Houston in late autumn is the largest quilt event in the United States and the one international visitors plan around. If you only ever go to one of these, quilters will tell you to make it this one.
International Quilt Festival official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
January in Ontario, California — the biggest show on the West Coast, with a serious judged competition and a class programme that books up early.
Road to California official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Puyallup, Washington, at the Washington State Fair Events Center — owned and run by the university itself, which is unusual among these. Broader than quilting alone: garment sewing and machine embroidery share the floor. The 2027 dates are published as March 4–7.
Sewing & Stitchery Expo official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Hampton, Virginia at the Hampton Roads Convention Center. It ran in late February through 2026; from 2027 Mancuso has moved it to the first week of March, which they say is about hotel availability. Mancuso runs several quilt festivals a year on the East Coast, and this is the largest of them.
Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Manchester, New Hampshire in the spring — the largest dedicated quilt event in northern New England.
New England Quilt Expo official site — the final word on this year’s dates and class booking.
Mostly who runs it and why. A quilt show is usually put on by a guild — volunteers, once a year, in their own town, with members' quilts on the walls. An expo is produced by a company that runs the same event in several cities a year: a paid vendor floor, a booked class programme, and often a judged competition alongside. Both are worth going to, but a guild show is a community event and an expo is a trade event with the public invited.
International Quilt Festival in Houston, held in late autumn, is the largest quilt event in the United States and the one people fly in for. Road to California in January is the biggest on the West Coast. If you want the one with the deepest competition history, that's AQS QuiltWeek in Paducah, Kentucky in April — the American Quilter's Society is based there, which is why Paducah is a quilting destination the rest of the year too.
Yes, for anything you actually care about taking. The touring expos publish their class schedules some weeks ahead and popular workshops with well-known teachers fill before the doors open. Admission to the vendor floor is normally sold separately from classes, so you can go and shop without booking anything — but showing up hoping to get into a class on the day is how people end up disappointed.
Not usually, and this page says so rather than guessing. Nearly every touring expo announces its next year's cities and dates a few months out. What we can tell you reliably is the month each stop normally runs in, which is what the listings below show when a confirmed date hasn't been published. Each city links to its own page, and the organizer's site is always the final word.
Run a quilt show? Dates change every year and organizers are the only reliable source, so add or update your show. Listings can be corrected or removed at any time, no account needed.