Seen At The Quilt Show (Part 3)

Probably the best part of attending any quilt show is knowing that there will be wonderful colors, fabrics, patterns, and craftsmanship that will grab your attention and draw you in. The following are some of the beautiful quilts which simply begged us to stop and take notice.

Kristin liked the way "Annie's Birds" by Mary Reynolds showed off a special fabric. Mary had several quilts on display which used a focus fabric in the middle, flanked by strips that draw your eye inward:

"Eccentric Circles" by instructor Tonye B Phillips had it all! There's rich, sophisticated, colors; tiny bias strip appliqué, wool felt circles (don't they make an exuberant border?), and a mix of hand and machine quilting.

"Hang 10 Ombre Style" by Natalie Barnes of Beyond The Reef Patterns has a lot of visual texture. Ombre in many guises has been hot for a while and this is an exciting variation:

Pam Raby, a favorite at The Pine Needle, displayed "Crosscut Blues" in the Teacher's Tent. I hope we get to see more of this one! The limited color palette allows for a broad range of fabrics so it's really fun to look at up close:

Another familiar face, Pinecone Kristin had her quilt, "Me Plus Alison," in the Portland Modern Quilt Guild special exhibit. Kristin made this guild Row by Row challenge out of the last little bits of two fabric lines which she'd been collecting at the shop: 

One of the popular special exhibits was ab*strakt*ed featuring quilts by Maren Johnston, Patty Six, Lou Ann Smith, and Debra Blake. We particularly liked the scale and shapes in this one by Patty Six titled, "New Directions."

"Starfall" by Sally Rogers, quilted and submitted by Corni Quinlivan strikes a lovely balance between the traditional and modern aesthetics. The light but not too sweet colors are refreshing too:

In the more is more category, Sarah Fielke never disappoints. "Night Garden," seen in the Teacher's Tent, is richly scrappy. There were several floral themed quilts with twilight colored backgrounds -- a trend we can fully appreciate!

 

"Desert Bloom" by Sally Frey caught our eye for it's quirky colors and design simplicity with big impact:

And finally, "Rattled" by Tula Pink is just charming. Who knew Drunkard's Path blocks could be so cute? Tula did:

Seen At The Quilt Show (Part 2)

Of course, when we go to shows, in addition to spotting future trends, we're always looking to see what people are making with the fabrics and patterns we stock in our shop. 

We love the Australian fabrics in our shop, so we're always excited to see them in finished quilts. "Australian Clams" by Leilani Seidel organizes the fabrics (which can be a little chaotic), and ties them together with the consistence of cream colored pickle dish-style arcs in complimentary colors. 

A stunner from afar and up close.

"Aboriginal Orbs" by Christine Johnson caught our eye as well. She's chosen purple to unify her fabrics and uses a variety of traditional and "modern" batiks to coordinate with the Aussies.

A new addition to our shop is Twighlight, indigo and mud cloth inspired fabrics by Whistler Studios and Windham. We're inspired by Natalie Barnes from Beyond the Reef patterns' quilt, "Faith Hope & Love" which uses these fabrics beautifully. We've already added the pattern to our shopping list! Since the fabrics are on the heavier side, we're thinking of pillows using just four of these improvisational-looking blocks.

Finding fabrics to represent something in a quilt can be challenging. "Fresh Picked" by Hedda Wright was a beautiful reminded that when depicting something, the mere suggestion through fabric color, pattern, or shape, rather than strict pictorial adherence, is most effective. It's OK to get wild and use polka dots for grass, florals in faces, and stripes for sky as they all have the potential to make the quilt more exciting.

Check out the fun cabbage leaves in not-necessarily-cabbagy fabrics:

Customers will often ask us for help coordinating fabrics (we LOVE doing this!), and the collections are usually based around a desired color or a focus fabric. But what if a quilt were designed around a theme, and any fabric with that theme was fair game, regardless of color?! Kristin thought "Strawberry Sunday" by Marcia Aurdal was pretty fun, and an off-the-beaten-track way to coordinate a quilt. All the fabrics used have strawberries. Of course the red in the berries ties things together, but overall, it's pretty scrappy and free-spirited:

And, speaking of color, the pickle juice background color in "Morse Code" by Lynn Glidden kind of screamed "Geri would love this!" Up close, it also has the Me+You Indah batiks Kristin loves, plus a bunch of Kaffe Fasset favorites for good measure. 

Westside Modern Quilt Club November 2016

We had a fascinating presentation at November's meeting. First though, our usual business. Our first "sew-in" for charity was extremely productive. a half dozen ladies met in the lounge for several hours before the meeting and sewed up nearly 20 market bags which we will fill with socks, underwear, and toiletries and donate to the homeless teens of Outside In. At our next sew in (in January) we'll make rucksacks for the same purpose.

Pinecone Kristin told us a little about what she saw at the Houston Quilt Festival (big winners here). The Special exhibits were particularly interesting, including La Passacaglia quilts like the one in progress our own Virginia shared a few months ago, amazing collage quilts by Susan Carlson, and a wonderful range from traditional to artistic. Trends were harder to spot. Nothing really stood out that we haven't already embraced at The Pine Needle. Intense color, soft color, Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Forest quilt, the Quick Curve ruler, we're doing a pretty good job of staying on top of what's popular.

Geri gave us some inspiration for our then and now challenge, entitled "Transitions." Looking for the emotional element in our work, one idea is for participants to create a modern quilt inspired by a family heirloom. Of course, not everyone has a vintage quilt at hand, so we encourage people to consider alternatives such as inspiration from a book, or by using vintage blocks themselves. Geri shared a book Kristin brought from the Houston special exhibit "Twisted" in which quilter Mary Kerr incorporated vintage blocks into modern settings and had them quilted by some of today's most accomplished long arm quilters. It was fascinating inspiration. We are also planning a "field trip" to the Latimer Quilt and Textile center in Tillamook, OR. Please call the shop if you'd like to sign up to receive more info. We'll have more info at our January meeting as well.

Our main presentation was a fascinating slide show by Nancy Betts of her and her husband's 2011 and 2014 trips to Mongolia. The first trip combined teaching quilting techniques to local women with adventuresome tourism. The second trip was similar, plus added putting on an international quilt show in the main city of Ulaanbaatar. They shared stories of sleeping in tents and gers (yurts), eating unusual foods, traveling many, many miles on unimproved roads in an old Russian van. We marveled at the stark scenery, great open spaces, and conditions completely different than most of us are used to. Thank you to Nancy and her husband for sharing their adventure with us.

Show and Tell was was short but sweet.

Virginia shared her "Admit One" quilt which recently won a prize at the Machine Quilting Unlimited show for Coleen's fantastic quilting. These two ladies make a great creative pair!

Marlene shared two vintage quilts she hopes to use as inspiration for our challenge. This well loved Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Sam quilt belonged to her husband when he was a baby.

Deslie shared  her reimagining of a pattern she found in a book. The original was much larger than she wanted, so Deslie adapted the pattern for a lap size.

Remember Susan B's Tribal Winds quilt with the silhouetted chief wrapped in a blanket? Check out what she made with her leftover blanket strips. We love the graphic punch of this!

Susan D shared a gorgeous purple quilt she recently finished.

Last but not least, Mardi shared a fantastic "fidget quilt" she made for a friend with dementia. She came up with all the fun, interactive blocks herself.

We won't be having a December meeting, so we wish everyone a happy, healthy, remainder of the holiday season and transition into the new year. We look forward to seeing everyone again in January.

2016 Quilt Festival Houston

Last week our Pinecone Kristin went to the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX. This annual show is the largest quilt show in the world and a pilgrimage for many a quilt maker and enthusiast. Here's a few things that caught Kristin's eye:

The venue: the George R Brown Convention Center. With it's exhibits, vendors, dining area, classrooms and lecture halls, IQF actually fills this entire, enormous, building.

Looking down onto the vendor side of the floor. This is maybe a quarter of the booths!

A typical vendor booth. This one is Modern Quilter.

And here's the Sew Kind of Wonderful/Quick Curve Ruler booth. 

The vendor booths are a great place to find inspiration, and to shop hundreds of different quilt shops in the same place.

In addition to the vendors, a huge part of the festival is the World of Beauty judged show and about a dozen additional special exhibits. Here, a visitor takes a closer look at the Millefiori Quilt special exhibit.

The Millefiori exhibit was built around this quilt, La Passacaglia, by Tula Pink, which inspired a renewed interest in English Paper Piecing and the original book by Willyene Hammerstein.

Another special exhibit was the collage quilts by Susan Carlson. Above is a detail of Dixie Dingo Dreaming, one of Kristin's favorites because of the Australian fabric used in it.

Susan's life sized alligator, Stevie, is impressive on so many levels. Note the people for scale.

Kristin's flag quilt, 'Murica was part of the Quilt National 15 special exhibit.

Another friend of The Pine Needle, Coleen Barnhardt's Color Me Quilted, was accepted into the World of Beauty Show.

Speaking of the World of Beauty show, that's the main draw of the show. It's the largest, most varied exhibit and is where the big prize winners are.

Kristin's favorite winner was this silk stunner, October Sky, by Bethanne Nemesh. You can see all the winning quilts here on IQA's website.

In the Traditional Pieced category, this grouping was dynamic and fresh. From left to right, Flight Path by Mary Menzer, Amsterdam View by Carolina Asmussen, and Wall of Sound by Maria Shell (also below).

The quilt show is a great place to look for trends, patterns, and inspiration.

How about super skinny lines:

Fire in the Stone by Kimberly Lacy.

Summer Solstice by Leah Gravells.

String Theory by Heather Pregger.

Kristin's friend Deborah, suspects that custom digitized embroidery will be the next big thing. We'll be seeing more and more of it incorporated into quilts in sophisticated ways.

This prize winner, Old Denim Square by Noriko Nozawa, cleverly pairs piecing, custom embroidery, and unconventional materials.

Old Denim Square, detail.

It was unclear if the quilting on this "whole cloth quilt" was digitized or not, but regardless, it's a beautiful modernization of a classic idea.

Detail of You've Got To Start Somewhere by Karl Burkett.

Our Westside Modern Quilt Club's challenge theme is Then and Now, and the above quilt is an interesting take. There was also a special exhibit titled "Twisted," which was also inspirational in it's use of vintage blocks in modern settings.

Stirring the Coffee from the Twisted exhibit.

Homespun from the Twisted exhibit.

Victoria Findlay Wolfe is a master of removing sections of traditional blocks (by making the same as adjacent blocks or background) and thus transforming the look. Can you find the basic block in this quilt? It's a variation on Arabic Lattice.

More inspiration found in the exhibit of quilts by Laverne Matthews. The Lincoln Quilt uses postage stamp blocks in an effective way.

Other inspirations seen:

How about the colors in Autumn Wedding by Rita Schormann.

Bargello made easy with ombre fabrics, as seen in the Joy's Quilts booth.

Subtle but beautiful use of shirt and suit style prints in Winter Garden by Jennifer Emry.