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.

Class Collages

In our Print and Collage class, we provided some guidance on using the students' printed fabrics to create a collage.  While some chose to continue printing a stash of fabrics, others went on to play with their fabrics to come up with an arrangement that they could tweak at home, as well as add stitching and other embellishments.  Sue explained her process of starting with either a color story or theme/focal point and auditioning stash pieces to come up with a pleasing composition, while keeping the elements and principles of design in mind.

Here she's working with analogous colors (blue & green), with the dark blue providing the contrasting pop of color.

Mary auditions fabrics for her collage, and finds that sometimes just changing the position or width of a piece of fabric can make a big difference.

Jane likewise auditions fabrics to provide balance to her composition.

Barbara had a great piece of batik (the turquoise on the right) in several colors that was a perfect complement to the mum screen printed in white. Here she's playing with various elements for her collage.

Etta used her leaf screen in 3 sizes with an organza overlay to create her composition.  Isn't this a great leaf design?

Here's a look at our extensive collection of screens that the students had to work with.  We look forward to seeing pictures of their completed collages!

Print and Collage Class Pics

Last Saturday we taught our Thermofax screen printing class at Artistic Artifacts, this time with a twist to create a collage from the fabrics printed in class.  This was a learning adventure for both us and our students as we endeavored to incorporate a small project into this one day class.  Typically, we teach all we know about screen printing and allow the students to create as much printed fabric as they can in a day's time. But sometimes students are not sure what to do with the fabric once they've created it, so we decided to add an exercise in creating a 12 inch collage from the printed fabrics, incorporating elements and principles of design.  We feel this new version of the class was successful, but may need a few tweaks.  First and foremost, we allowed our students the flexibility to determine if they wanted to work on the collage aspect, or just preferred to create more fabrics to add to their stash.  At any rate, we all had a good time and a positive learning experience!

Student are busy creating a printed fabric stash.

Mel's primary art endeavor is painting on silk with thickened dye.  She chose to add Thermofax printing to some of those pieces.

Michelle works more with paper and journaling than fabric, so she chose to add additional layers to some previously printed papers she brought with her.

Etta is hard at work printing with some of our screens, as well as others she had us create from some of her original drawings.

Here's a print of one of her originals.

Jennifer took the approach of creating a landscape-type effect with the screens she chose to use.

Beth is practicing her technique.

On our demo piece, we added some butterflies to a batik that had some smaller butterflies on it.  Some are done with paint, some with discharge (DeColourant) which takes color out, and some with foil to add sparkle.

Elizabeth shares some color info with Mel and Jennifer.  Come back tomorrow for a look at some of their collages in progress.

MAQF Favorites from Elizabeth

Elizabeth fell in love with the prize winning quilt by Janet Stone called ABC Frippery.  It was stunning and the maroon hand-dyed velveteen used in the background gave it a texture and depth to bar none.  Here is the entire quilt along with a few close up photos.  Be sure to click to enlarge and see the fabulous quilting.

Another highlight was part of the Peninsula Piecemakers Quilt Guild Challenge "Not Your Grandmother's Quilt".  Rhonda Gianturco made a quilt "Tat's Not My Grandmother's Dresden I" which incorporated needle tatting in each block and is a tribute to both her grandmothers, one who sewed and one who tatted with a shuttle.

More from MAQF

In addition to the prize winning quilts shown Wednesday, we had some other favorite quilts.  These are some that Sue has on her favorites list.  Some are part of the MAQF show, others are from special exhibits.

The quilt above, called Moss, was made by Mary Menzer, and was part of an exhibit by the Virginia Beach Modern Quilt Guild.  It was the result of a paint chip challenge, where the colors used in the quilt were selected by choosing paint chips.

Hollis Chatelain of Hillsborough, NC, created Source of Life.  This piece was part of a "Water is Life" exhibit which consists of 41 quilts by artists from Europe and North America.  It's purpose is to illustrate the "impact of clean water on the lives of women and girls around the world. Only 1% of all water on earth is accessible for human consumption."  This piece is created with machine applique, however much of Hollis' work is dye-painted and heavily stitched.  Check out the galleries on her website.  Sue is excited (and somewhat intimidated) to be taking a class with her at the beginning of April.

Together We Stand is by Laura Fogg of Ukiah, CA.  Laura depicts herself, her daughter and granddaughter participating in the 2017 Women's March.  It is machine appliqued and machine quilted.

This quilt, S Spiral by Sheila Shepherd of Bishop, GA, is very subtle, especially in a photo.  Click on it to enlarge for a better view.  All those spirals you see are hand appliqued on the background.  It won a blue ribbon for Best Hand Workmanship in the Wall Quilt category.  It is hand appliqued and hand quilted.

Poppies by Beth P. Gilbert of Huntley, IL, is a happy quilt made in a modern improvisational style.  In it she celebrates poppies by showcasing them in different techniques.  Some are machine free motion embroidery, some are fabric applique.  It is machine pieced and quilted.

Wrinkly/Irony is a whimsical quilt by Connie Kincius Griner of Burlington, NC.  It was inspired by an internet posting that defined "irony" as the opposite of "wrinkly".  It is machine pieced, machine appliqued, and longarm machine quilted.

Ann Horton has been around the quilting world for a long time, and continues to impress with this piece called Old Fence.  This is another quilt that needs to be viewed up close for all the fabulous details and workmanship.  It is machine pieced, machine appliqued, machine quilted, and also includes machine embroidery, felting, and couched embellishments.  Ann is from Redwood Valley, CA.

Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival 2018

Elizabeth and Sue spent last weekend in Hampton, VA at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival (MAQF). It had been 2 years since we were there, as last year we went to QuiltCon in Savannah.  We enjoyed the quilts and shopping at the vendors.  For 2 people who had very little on our shopping lists, we certainly found plenty of opportunities to boost the economy!

This is a huge show, and really takes several days to thoroughly take in the quilts.  It is overwhelming to spend a long time on the quilts, so we tend to mix our time between quilts and vendors.  The main prize winning quilts are in the center of the convention center on the blue carpet.

Vendors encompass the areas surrounding the show quilts. Here's a shot of the Artistic Artifacts booth.

There were so many quilts to see, it's even hard to select favorites.  We'll start with some of the prize winners.

Above is the Best of Show quilt, called The Twisted Sisters by Margaret Solomon Gunn of Gorham, ME.  It is hand pieced, machine appliqued, and longarm quilted.  For this and the other quilts, click on the picture for a larger view.  The quilting on this quilt is spectacular.

ABC Frippery is by Janet Stone of Overland Park, KS.  It won the ribbon for 1st Place in the Traditional category.  It is machine pieced, machine appliqued, and machine quilted.  This is #18 in a series of alphabet quilts; her intent is to make a total of 26 alphabet quilts.  This one contains antique buttons and jewelry that illustrate some of the letters of the alphabet.

Lepidopteran #5 was inspired by a moth, and is made by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry of Port Townsend, WA.  It won 1st place in the Innovative category and is machine pieced and quilted.

Deb Crine of Marco Island, FL, created Great Blue.  This won Best Wall Quilt.  It is painted on silk and machine quilted.  Do enlarge to get a better look at the stitching detail.

Reflections on Water is by Sandra L. Mollon of Valley Springs, CA.  This won 3rd place in the Wall Quilt category.  It is done with fused applique and is machine quilted.

Stay tuned for more in our next post! 

SNaP Challenge

SNaP is an acronym for "SAQA Northern Virginia Pod" - a group of local quilters who belong to the SAQA national organization.  SAQA stands for Studio Art Quilt Associates, a national group that promotes art quilting.

The SNaP challenge was issued to the group to make a 12 inch art quilt to interpret the word "snap".  It could be whatever the word brings to mind - snapshot, a snap closure, the snap of a rubber band - you get the idea.  At our January meeting we shared our challenge pieces seen below.

 Above, we have the snap of a football, and the snap of a broken heart.

The quilt on the left represents snapchat, the quilt on the right represents snappy repartee.

We also have an awesome snapping turtle, and snapdragons (Sue's piece).

 And finally, a piece representing a snapshot.  Looks like successful pieces all around!