Westside Quilters Show

When I visited Rose City Quilts, the owner told me about the Westside Quilters Show. He was doing a lecture, but at that point I thought I would cram the show between helping the YM and the Halloween party. As mentioned, I ended up not helping with the storage unit. I immediately switched from heading to storage to heading to the quilt show. 

The Westside Quilters Show was held in Hillsboro in the Event Center. It was a smallish show, but had some great quilts. I spent about two hours there, which was the right amount of time for me. 

After entering, I found a boutique that solved some problems for me. I bought two zipper pouches and a needlebook. Since I hadn’t gotten around to making myself a couple of zipper pouches for my travel purse, this was a good solution. I also bought a needlebook for the upcoming guild swap. Again, a good solution with all of my travel during the past couple of months. I was also able to support their guild.

I did a circuit of the quilts just to see what there was and then I settled down to really looking at them and taking some photos. There was a variety of quilts: traditional, modern, EPP, scrappy. I also saw a couple of quilts with an impressive amount of embroidery. 

One was the Birds of Liberty by Terese Scollard. the quilt is made from an embroidered bird block for each state. One thing about this quilt is it would be a great and portable project for travel (yes, I have travel on the mind). I like the layout of the quilt as well. I think it is interesting. 

I enjoyed a couple of quilts with Modern looking designs.

Dreaming of a Small World by Leanne Jones has a lot to recommend it. First, the colors are right up my street. Second, this is a good example of a layout that could be used for a BAM BOM quilt. Finally, I like the way the blocks are combined to make additional shapes. For example, the bottom right blocks are combined to make an arrow. This is a great way to put classic blocks together in an interesting manner.

I also liked the espresso pot quilt. It is unique, but also interesting in its layout.

The center cross and sashing like lines is an interesting additional that really adds to this quilt. 

The designer said her husband used AI to “generate a moka pot that I liked”. I am not sure how I feel about AI taking over quilt design, but there is no doubt that I like this quilt.

I have been thinking about Quilts of Valor since the guild mates made the quilt for my stepdad. Patriotism is an interesting concept and I have wanted to contribute to the QoV project as a way of showing patriotism. I don’t want to to grab and panel and sew some borders. I want to do something a little more complex, on my own timeline, of course. As a result, I have been looking at quilts I consider to be patriotic.

Small Town America by Christine Radford is a quilt I would put into this category. It doesn’t have a rah-rah-go-USA feeling. It is also complex, which projects the complexity of the USA’s society. I think the addition of some non-red/white/blue colors adds to the overall design and feel. This is a pattern by Charisma Horton. It has a variety of centers from which to choose.

I also saw One Good Thing by Janice White. I was 100% certain that this was a Chaos with a Twist quilt. It has similar blocks and the same kind of mirroring layout. The maker didn’t reference Libs Elliot or Chaos with a Twist, however, so I am not sure. She could have just forgotten to mention it. In looking further at the photo, I see some differences to the blocks provided in the class. Some of the curved blocks have a different shape. I would really like to know!

I was pleased to see the Tula designed Queen of Diamonds quilt. This one is by Sue Hauser.

I have considered making this quilt, but don’t want to make the same thing that everyone else is making. Still, I like the complexity of the blocks and can see working on this in EPP.

I am not sure if this is the whole quilt, as it is in the pattern. Regardless, it looks great!

The day I visited the show was Halloween. I saw several costumes, but I am absolutely making the wings I saw this woman wearing. This is the perfect costume, because I could wear normal clothes and just slip the wings on as needed. No wild makeup or uncomfortable outerwear.

The wings are by Tale & Twig. I could absolutely design these wings just from the photo. I decided to buy the pattern to make it easier on myself and also because of a couple of details the wearer mentioned that would be time consuming to figure out.

I talked to the woman for quite awhile, which I enjoyed.

The vendors were good, too. New to me, which was nice. My favorite vendor was Snarky Quilts. She had some fun sayings on sweatshirts and t-shirts, but also an interesting pressing mat. This is a super small business, so I was glad to support her.