Saturday I attended the East Bay Heritage Quilters Show. As usual, this show was impeccably set up and organized. In general, I thought the quilts were a lot more interesting than the last show in 2008. Much less brown as well.
It is hard to decide what my favorite quilt of the show was, but I think it was probably Evening Star by Karin Lusnak. The thing I like about it is that there is a lot of movement and interest.
She did the same thing I have done using the mosaic quiltmaking technique of Shannon Williams. It looks like she made fabric using her scraps and then cut the patches for the Evening Star from that new fabric.
I love the angles of the houses in this quilt. The colors are also fresh and clear.
The turquoise/aqua and red combination are one that has been attracting me lately. I also thought the flower designs were quite cheerful. These flowers may be from a Piece ‘O Cake or Pat Sloan pattern. I have always liked the layered circles motif, which can be seen in the border of this quilt.
There are a lot of things I like about this quilt. The artist does a nice job not exactly reproducing the photograph which was the inspiration. The blue and green are abstract enough to evoke a feeling of nature without exactly duplicating the photo. The main part I like in this quilt is the technical details of the border. I don’t much like uneven borders, because they often floop down when hanging. Ms. Kaplan has resolved this issue with the white border. Her uneven border accents the quilt and adds movement without causing a hanging problem. Nice work!
Corless Smith did a great job with these circles. The layers of fabric and the blanket stitch are very appealing. It has a vintage look even though a number of the fabrics are modern.
The small circles also add interest. The scallop type border could be a hanging problem but isn’t, which I appreciate.
The artist, Pat Dicker, writes about this quilt “Sue Garman’s charming Block fo the Month appealed to me, but rather than use the browns, olives and grays as suggested, I turned to my bright ‘dot’ drawer and found inspiration. I also chose to exclude the cars of the pattern and create a ‘Pedestrian Friendly’ community. ” All good choices IMO! You would not be looking at this quilt if she had made it in “browns, olives and grays.” This is a wonderful quilt in the dots and brights. I also like it that she changed the pattern to suit her vision. How do you like the whale?
I saw this really cool idea I am sure it is not new but. It has produced an awesome quilt & community. Check it out @ http://calamitykim.typepad.com/calamity_kim/2010/04/for-the-love-of-gnomes.html
In the “Circles” quilt, was that blanket stitching done by hand? Was it all the way through the quilt so it doubled as quilting too? I see the quilting in the red parts but wondered how the circles were quilted? For that matter, was the whole quilt, quilted by hand?
I enjoyed this posting. I am so jealous of a huge number of quilters in my guild going to Paducah! I haven’t been to a quilt show since 2007?
SherriD: Excellent questions!!! There is meandering quilting in the red background. It looks like it is done by machine. There is no quilting in the circles. The blanket stitch is very regular, but I think it was done by hand. I didn’t think to look very closely at those details! Sorry about that.
You’ll get to go to a show soon! The web is great for eye candy!
Thanks for the photos you sent. I went over them with a fine tooth comb and you know what? I think the blanket stitch was done by machine! If you really study the pictures, some of the stitches look like you can see the bobbin thread where it has been pulled to the top. My Pfaff does a blanket stitch just like that. So in theory, that machine blanket stitch is probably quilted through and through.
It doesn’t matter either way. I was just curious! 🙂