Quilt Show!

Last week I had the pleasure of finally attending the Sewing and Quilt Expo in Lakeland, Florida-- about a 40 minute drive from my home.

This show has been coming to Lakeland for quite a few years but it's always been scheduled during a busy work week for me so I've never had the time to go.

This year my Spring Break occurred during the same week as the show so HURRAY!  I finally got to go!

There are loads of really fun classes offered at the Expo but when I saw this one it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to get some technical skills to use on my HQ Sweet 16.  Plus, the class was actually taught on the Sweet 16 --there was a whole classroom of them!

Here's a quick shot from the class.  We worked with handouts breaking down the basic shapes like straight lines, S curves, loops, and hooks (shown in the picture.)


Some of the students were new to the machine, others were like me and had owned them for awhile.  (I've had mine for about 3 years.)

This was a technique class, not a project class, so I just had this sampler at the end. But I learned a lot!

Some skills were brand new, like this attempt at pebble quilting.

Looks more like a bunch of grapes to me!

I LOVE THIS.  It's feathers done as "l's" and "e's".  Make your spine, then work your way down with the l's and e's done as figure 8's.  Really easy and I love the modern look.

This fern design was one of my favorites too, working all with "S" shapes.  And I like how it looks really good if the 2 sides of leaves don't match.

As usual at an event like this there were lots of vendors plus some beautiful quilts on display.

I loved this one from the Tampa Modern Quilt Guild.  That's some really adventurous quilting in the white spaces.

Now THAT'S what pebble quilting is supposed to look like!

Charlotte's Quilts

As you might recall from this post, the retirement community where my dad now lives has an active quilting community.  Today I went to a solo show of quilts made by a good friend of his.

 I've met Charlotte several times, and she's one of those terrific people who's setting a great example of Growing Older Gracefully.  I want to be just like her when I grow up (!)



She's a talented quilter, too!

These 3 were quite small

This was one of the larger ones, although it was still

wall hanging size.  It's called "Standing Still" 

There were 2 "Storm at Sea" quilts.

This one had soft tones of blue and peach

I loved the bright colors and contrasting values

of this one

The star of the show was this Rose of Sharon sampler.  It's really stunning! 

It was also the largest quilt at this exhibit, I'm guessing it's around 40 x 60".

It's all fusible applique, and machine pieced and quilted.  I thought it was a great mix of modern meets traditional styles.  

 Nice job Charlotte, and keep up the good work!  I can't wait to see your next creation!

Quilt Show, Part 2

The Dunedin Fine Arts Center is hosting a really fine Art Quilt exhibit.

Click here for my post about the quilts from the Quilt National competition that are part of the exhibit.

The second room of the exhibit was dedicated to modern fiber artist Betty Busby, whose works for this exhibit all represented her vision of things from a cellular level.

In other words, let's look under a microscope, and make a quilt out of what we see.

What a concept!

Here's a closeup of the above quilt. The detail work was amazing.

This quilt was very interesting.  Titled "Fracture" it had a quilt-over-a-quilt for a unique layered effect.

Without the incredible thread work,this would be just a bunch of polka dots on fabric!

You can read more about Betty here.

The exhibit runs through August 11.  Check the website (here) for more info.






A little housekeeping:  Tomorrow and Sunday my Etsy store will be on vacation while I'm a vendor at a Christmas in July event.  It's an indoor (thank goodness), holiday shopping themed event with about 50 vendors.  I'm bringing a ton of merchandise and  I'm hoping it will be a lot of fun!  I'll have a full report Monday.

Quilt Show!

Every summer the Dunedin Fine Arts Center (website here ) hosts a really fine quilt show, which includes a traveling exhibit, a silent auction of small quilts from the local quilt guild, and a featured artist.

Usually, the show is centered around a traditional theme.  But this year's exhibit is a little different, focusing on art quilts.



The quilts were meant to stretch the traditional definition of what a quilt is.

The most remarkable thing about many of the exhibited quilts was the use of thread as a painting medium.  The shading on this quilt was all achieved through placement of the thread colors and the incredibly dense stitching.

The density of the stitching and the amount of thread used was truly stunning.

This one was particularly interesting because it's a whole cloth quilt.  What a vision you would have to have to make a plain piece of white fabric into something like this!

  Here's a closeup of the center of the circle.  It's all about the stitching.

This was one of my favorites.

See that fringe at the bottom?

It's made out of plastic trash bags!

Now that's what I call upcycling!

As you might expect, the quilt is titled "Global Warming/The Great Unraveling"

   

These quilts were just one room of the exhibit.

Next post:  a fascinating roomful of quilt art by modern fiber artist Betty Busby.

Vermont Quilt Festival, Part 3

I've posted about the wonderful quilts that were on display (here) and the fantastic free motion quilting class I took with Sue Nickels (here) at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  There's only one thing left to talk about.

How about a little shopping?

There were, of course, DOZENS of fabric vendors selling precuts, collections, and yardage off the bolt.

There were specialty fabrics available too, like silks, felted wools, and hand dyed fabrics.










There were also kits available.  This being a New England event, a lot of the fabric was what I would categorize as Traditional.   However, there were a few contemporary style vendors there, like this one.  (Love that house quilt!)

There was a truly staggering number of hi-tech sewing machines there from all of the major companies.  (That one on the right looks familiar!)

This longarm machine was particularly fancy.  It's run with a removable tablet (like an Ipad), and was also quilting by itself when I took this picture.

(Noted:  amid all the hi-tech hubbub, the vendor selling antique Singer Featherweight machines was also doing a brisk business!)

There were also vendors with every notion, ruler, accessory, and Everything Else You Could Think Of.

Fabric flowers seem to be a big trend right now, and this vendor had all of the patterns for them.







A few goodies that I couldn't resist:

 This collection of Autumn fat quarters was particularly yummy.

Love this music fabric, even if it's not actually real music (it's not notated correctly, TRUST ME)

I was pleased to see a huge vendor display from Superior Threads.  If you want to know anything and everything about thread, they're a great source.  These are disposable bobbins, class "M" size for my Sweet 16 machine.  I have big cones of neutral colors that I wind myself but I thought it might be good to get some of these pre-wound bobbins to fill in with a few colors. One of those bobbins will be enough thread to quilt large size lap quilt, with a little left over.

Christmas items are always on my Summer Quilting To-Do List.

 And an awesome new ruler from Quiltersrule!  It has a sliding strip in the back that you move to whatever size fabric you're cutting, then use the screws to have it stay in place. Your fabric butts up against it the strip, eliminating fabric slide, ruler wiggles, and general inconsistencies while rotary cutting.  It's pretty awesome!

 It comes with directions for not only cutting strips, but other shapes as well.




Now, after several days of fun at the Festival, it's time to get back to sewing!