Saturday, July 30, 2011

Quilt Show!

Sunflower:New Quilts from an Old Favorite from the National Quilt Museum

As I mentioned in my last post, today was the day my quilt guild met at the "New Quilts from an Old Favorite" show at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center.  We're so lucky that this traveling show makes a stop in our area every other year, and the shows are during the summer when we have time to go!
I've been to quite a few of these shows over the years.  Sometimes I worry that I won't like the quilts so much, because the theme might be a block that I'm not so crazy about-- Double Wedding Ring comes to mind, and there was a Bear Claw theme a few years back also.  Then I go to the show and am simply bowled over by the quilts, regardless of what the theme is.
Of course, there were no such worries about the theme this year.  Who doesn't like sunflowers?


These quilters are just so clever and original.  Like having a flower hang off the right edge of the quilt.

There were real sunflower seeds attached to the quilt.  The bird on the lower right side has one in his mouth.









Here's the bottom of that quilt, all made of hexagons and beautifully beaded.










This one was stunning for its use of color.












This one was particularly inventive because it's NOT a landscape.  This was the only "person" depicted at the show.








Well, maybe I should say the only "human"


This one had 3 little fairies in it.












I'm not sure why the fairies were needed.  But there she is.











So often quilts at this level have "fancy" fabric-- hand dyed, hand painted, blessed by fairies, something complicated.  But this one is the "Route 66" collection from Michael Miller Fabrics, available at your local quilt shop for $9/yard.  You can see a little of the amazing texture in this picture, the quilt had a ton of of yarn and rick-rack.







 This one is based on a traditional Navajo blanket.  One of my friends who's familiar with that culture said the colors were exactly right.  With so many free-form quilts at the show, this example of Precision Piecing was impressive.




Stay tuned for more Quilting Eye Candy!

1 comment:

  1. Wow! The Navajo piecework is amazing - look at those tiny black squares in there. Thanks for sharing!

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