QuiltCon 2024

 A few weeks ago, we attended QuiltCon 2024 in Raleigh, NC.  QuiltCon is the annual convention sponsored by the Modern Quilt Guild.  

There were many wonderful quilts (too many to share here) and we will highlight a few.  You can see lots more on our Facebook page. Here are some of the prize winners.

Anechoic by Janice Reimer of Vancouver, British Columbia, won the MQG Excellence Award.

Cloudy Night Sky by Yvonne Fuchs of Tehachapi, California, won Best Machine Quilting.

Overprint by Betsy Vinegrad of Short Hills, New Jersey, won 1st place in the Windham Artisan Cotton Challenge.

Best in Show winner is Ginny Robinson of Chapel Hil, NC, with What We Will Use as Weapons: A List of School Supplies.

Mulberry Swirl by Kelly Spell of Hixson, Tennessee, won 1st place for Minimalist Design.

Reconceived by Jennifer Candon of Harvard, Massachusetts, won 1st place in the Improvisation category.

These are just as few of the many wonderful quilts at QuiltCon.  You can see all the winners on the Quilt Con website here and more photos on our Facebook page - search PGFiber2Art.

Quilt Camp Week 12 - Fall Opportunities

Thanks to everyone for following along with our virtual quilt camp for the past 3 months. We are wrapping up with a compendium of quilt-related opportunities for fall.  While Elizabeth is preparing to close up her New Hampshire summer house and return to Virginia, Sue is preparing for a medical procedure and will be taking it easy for a bit.  So we thought it would be good to leave you with a list of fall online opportunities - hopefully everyone will find something of interest.  But first, a sneak peek of some projects we are working on.  Elizabeth's acorns on the left, Sue's eco print on the right.

Shows

• Pacific International Quilt Festival Online - Oct. 14-17  While many workshops are closed, it appears you can still register for others.  There will be online vendors as well as a virtual quilt show/competition.  Online Merchant Mall and quilt galleries will remain open through Oct. 31.
• International Quilt Festival (Houston) - Dec. 3-5  This largest quilt show in the US is moving online to a Virtual Quilt Festival this year.  The corresponding Quilt Market that usually happens just before Festival is moving to January and will also be online.  There will be classes, vendors and exhibits.  Sign up for their newsletter to stay informed.  
• Fabric Forecast - Oct. 19 - Nov. 9  This Quilt Expo Event  is open to quilt store owners, online retailers and quilters to see the latest fabric lines that will be debuting in the coming months.  A virtual ticket costs $10.
• The Art of the Quilt at Piedmont Arts in Martinsville, VA - Oct. 24 - Jan. 9  Quilt artists from across the Southeast exhibit work in this biennial invitational exhibition.  This is an in-person exhibit, so if you are comfortable visiting an exhibit center, this is always a worthwhile exhibit.  Sue has 2 pieces in this exhibit. 

Classes

• Craftsy (formerly Bluprint) is back!  This online class platform is offering a special price for their relaunch - $2.49 for a full year of access (normal price is $79.99).  Craftsy features online instruction in over 20 hobbies, not just quilting.
• Global Quilt Connection is a series of virtual meet-the-teacher webinars that introduces you to teachers who have moved their instruction online and the workshops and lectures they have available.  While intended to help teachers connect with guilds and others who might like to hire them for virtual instruction, these webinars also give you an overview of teachers whose online classes you might want to pursue.
• Live Online Quilt Classes - This is a site that allows teachers to teach live via Zoom.  The class offerings continually change so check back frequently for updates.
• Craft Napa - Jan. 13-17, 2021; additional workshops scheduled for Jan. 19-24 for workshops that sold out.  These are primarily art quilt and mixed media workshops but do include some more traditional offerings.  All are virtual for 2021. 
• QuiltCon Together - Feb. 18-21, 2021; this is the annual convention of the Modern Quilt Guild which will be online next year.  Registration is underway.  Activities include lectures, mini workshops and mega workshops, quilt show and vendors. 
• Virginia Consortium of Quilters (VCQ) - Our state-wide guild is now meeting online via Zoom.  We have offered 2 classes so far as well as an informal Come Quilt with Me session on the 3rd Saturday of the month at 9 AM.  Our November meeting is our annual meeting along with a lecture/trunk show by Augusta Cole.  Class offerings will resume in January. Also join our Facebook page to keep up with current events. 
• Original Sewing and Quilt Expo - ongoing, Oct. & Nov. virtual classes.

Museums

• Virginia Quilt Museum - The VQM in Harrisonburg is open with 6 exhibits currently on display.  Some are there through December, some will change in October and November.  There are 2 Zoom workshops coming up (Bowl Cozy on Oct. 10 and Scandinavian Stars on Nov. 13).  They are also having a Stash Blast on Oct. 17 at the museum; fabric is for sale at $9 a pound.  One of the upcoming exhibits is the Colors of Fall challenge that Sue contributed a quilt to and shared here on the blog a few weeks ago.
• National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY -  The National Quilt Museum has reopened to the public.  They have also just announced Quilt Museum Digital.  For an $8 per month fee, you can experience the museums exhibits online from the comfort of home, as well as other subscriber-only content.  One of the current exhibits through December is OURstory: Human Rights Stories in Fabric. Opening October 9 is Inspired by Endangered Species.  Sue has quilts in both of these exhibits, which you've probably seen here on the blog.

We hope this list provides you with some new and fun things to discover over the coming months.  Happy fall!

Day 3 Manchester Quilt Show

We spent Friday in Manchester at the World Quilt New England show, one of the Mancuso shows.  This is a smaller show (compared to Mid-Atlantic) but nice in a different way.  It features show entries from quilters around the world, and the quilts are grouped by country.  There is a prize for Best of Country for each group in addition to the usual prize categories.  We found there to be a great mix of techniques in the show quilts.  Rather than just show our favorite quilts, we decided to each choose four that we thought most interesting because of their techniques. 

"Bloom - Remember the Honey Bees" won Best of Country for New Zealand, and is made by Mary Transom.  It has a hand painted background, raw edge applique, collage, couching, stamping, and machine embroidery.  The bees were painted and then machine embroidered.  It is an original design.

"Migrating Birds" was also a Best of Country winner for Israel and it's maker, Rachel Steiner.  The impressive thing about this piece is that it is done with discharge.  It is a whole cloth quilt, meaning it started out as a piece of black fabric that the maker took color out of by using a Q-tip dipped in bleach!  In other words, lots of painstaking work created all those birds!  Discharging black fabric usually results in varying shades of rust or brown.  There is also lots of stitching which helps create the color story.

"Ode to Banksias 7" is by Susan Mathews of Australia.  This quilt is from a series featuring native Australian plants.  We liked the sunny yellow and the fact that the background fabrics are lino printed and hand dyed, and the plant images are screen printed.  Techniques that are right up our alley!  It's fun to see how other people use these techniques.

Raita Sawyer of the United Kingdom created "Tangram Activity".  A tangram is an ancient Chinese puzzle creating a square out of 7 pieces.  The tangram figures are bursting with energy.  It is machine pieced, appliqued and quilted and an original design.

Winning honorable mention in the Innovative category is "Skyscraper Sunflowers" by Kathryn Harmer Fox of South Africa (full image on the left). The base fabric is cotton duck canvas and she has used snippets of many fabrics that are scribble stitched to the background to create her design.  There are also pieces of colored netting incorporated into the work.

"Memories of Scotland" is by Kathleen Matthews of the United Kingdom.  The center panel of this quilt was first painted with acrylic paints.  The bordering pictures are photos printed on fabric.  All are heavily stitched and thread painted.  Below is a collage of some close ups of various parts of the quilt.

"Hundreds and Thousands - Little Green Squares" is by Sue Bax of South Africa.  Sue says she started this quilt in a workshop and was inspired by a green jelly roll of Kaffe Fassett fabrics to which she added many other fabrics.  You have to look at the detail photo (enlarge by clicking) to see how small some of these squares really are!

One of the special exhibits at the show was HERstory Quilts: A Celebration of Strong Women curated by our friend Suzanne Miller Jones.  The quilt above is one of the quilts in the exhibit, "Ruby Bridges", made by Willa Downes.  Willa is also a friend of ours - in fact, we made the thermofax screen she used to print the desk images on her quilt.  It's always fun to see work by a customer, especially when it's hanging in a show!

More Lancaster Quilts

There were many outstanding quilts in the Lancaster AQS show last week.  In addition to the prize winners shown Monday, here are some additional quilts that stood out.

Holding Onto Hope is by Amy Cavaness of Marseilles, IL.  The lovely soft colors almost make this look like a painting.

Beautiful Autumn by Mariko Miwas of Musashino, Tokyo, Japan.  The autumn scene in the circle is made up of teeny tiny pieces and lots and lots of stitching - just incredible!

Fractal is by Claudia Pfeil of Krefeld, Germany.  It looks incredibly complex.

There was a SAQA special exhibit (Studio Art Quilt Associates) called Korean Quilts Now.  The Korean SAQA group was founded in 2010 and the exhibit features a variety of art quilt techniques that they have studied over the last few years.  Above is Where I Live by Misik Kim.

Memory is by Jang Dong Boon.

Far Away is by Aeran Kim.  Lovely soft colors and depth.

Back to the main quilt show, Andrea Brokenshire of Round Rock, TX, made My Rhodie which received a 1st place ribbon in the Wall Quilt category.

Dialogue is by Rachel Derstine of Schwenksville, PA.

Sherrie Grob of Murphysboro, IL, created Angle Management.

David Cutting Stumps by Mary Haukom of Colorado Springs, CO, is an excellent example of using value to create depth.

We hope you've enjoyed this mini quilt show!

AQS Lancaster Show

When Sue was returning to Virginia from Pennsylvania last week, she was able to fit in a stop at the Lancaster Quilt Show put on by the American Quilters Society.  This was the first time she's attended this show.  It is on a smaller scale than the Mancuso shows like Mid-Atlantic, but worth the visit. 

There were exceptional quilts in the show; some of the winners were also winners at Mid-Atlantic, but with completely different quilts.  There are some busy quilters out there!  It was also interesting to see a proportionately larger number of international quilts - several from Japan,  South Korea, Germany and Australia.  It was also a venue that included the Cherrywood Van Gogh exhibit which Sue was especially eager to see.  Here are pictures of some of the winners and some Van Gogh favorites.

Pear Drops by Cheryl Kerestes of Wyoming, PA, won 3rd place in the large quilt category.

Janet Stone of Overland Park, Kansas, made Garden Variety Sampler. which is another in her series of alphabet quilts.  It won for Best Stationary Machine Workmanship.

The Best of Show prize went to Pat Holly of Ann Arbor, MI, for Turkish Treasures.

Taking the Unmapped Road is by Margaret Solomon Gunn of Gorham, ME, and won for Best Movable Machine Workmanship.

In the wall quilt category, Three Thieving Crows by Gayle Pulley of Eatonville, WA, won for Best Original Design.

Roots and Branches by Christina McCann of Depoe Bay, OR, won Best Wall Quilt.

Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry's work is recognizable anywhere.  Celebration #2 won for Best Use of Color.  Caryl is from Port Townsend, WA.

This shot of some of the Van Gogh quilts is about a third of the total in the collection.  Here is a selection of favorites.

Top row artists, left to right: Enid Weichelsbaum, Miyuki Humphries, Lesly-Clair Greenburg
Middle row artists, left to right:  Margaret Vachon, Ricki Selva, Angie Gohn
Bottom row artists, left to right:  Linda Nelson Johnson, Sally Wright, Bonnie Duhon
You can see more of the Cherrywood Van Gogh challenge quilts here.

Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them for a closer look.  In all cases, the quilting adds incredible texture and dimension that is not apparent in these photos.