Full of Soup

On November 5th and 6th the Evening Star Quilters Guild of Mineola had their annual guild show. It was a small show, but there were many inspiring quilts.

If you look closely, you can see these are all batik fabrics. I think some quilts that use these fabrics become all about showcasing the prints, but her subtle use really lets the pattern shine through.

My camera was incapable of capturing this lovely tone of lavender, so enjoy this sub-par version.

I love the use of near-solids in this quilt. It’s so colorful without feeling like a rainbow.

Can’t go wrong with a scrappy log cabin.

Something modern! And beautiful quilting.

Double Irish Chain. Really perfect version of this classic pattern.

This woman purchased all of the handkerchiefs from eBay. I was thinking this would be a great way to zip up a simple quilt, but then she went ahead and intricately quilted each block.

I love this pattern.

Love. I think I’ll make something very similar someday soon.

Cathedral Windows.

This is sorcery to me.

Oh HANDS DOWN my favorite of the show.

Delilah’s Doll Shoppe!

Beads on the trees.

Apparently the bought the pattern at City Quilter. I hope it’s still there!

This was my take home from the show. I’m psyched.

I think “extravaganza” is actually fitting for what I witnessed at this show.

This was an enormous quilt. I felt like I was looking through a window and had to turn my head to see it all.

Love these colors.

This quilt, from Japan, was made up of 61,000 pieces. For reference, my Trip Around The World quilt was about 1,500.

These quilts, also from Japan, were incredibly intricate their effect was unlike anything I have ever seen before.

I love the way this one is framed. I love how it looks realistic, but not so much that you forget it’s a quilt.

This was a total show stopper for me. I love this painting and had just visited it at the MoMa the day before, so I really appreciate the startling accuracy.

Okay, this BLEW my mind. The next three quilts are made from the same pattern:

I forget where this one is from. I need to take notes.

I love this one. Can’t describe why.

This quilt is from South Africa.

This quilt was so stunning in person. It reminded me of the “crazy quilts” from the 20s.

Detailed fabric flowers were a recurring theme in this show.

Loved this! I can’t even figure out how this was done. And this is just one square!

On the right there is a 3-D spider crawling out of the quilt!

There was a section of the show that was for quilts that address racism. This artist feels that the current US flag is too clear cut for the layered history and the many different cultures represented in America.

This was her version.

This quilt was another stunner in person. It reminded me of Elizabeth’s “Touch this Quilt” piece. There white spaces are newspaper articles about racism in the US.

This one’s for my sister- these animals are felted!

This quilt really stretches the definition of quilt. I love seeing the unexpected at these shows.

This quilt, titled “Bathing in the Ganges,” won Best in Show. I really like it when more modern quilts make a nod to the traditional. The detailed log cabin blocks that border this piece really brings it all together for me.

And bling!!

I realize I didn’t take a picture of this whole quilt, but the embroidery on this one was off the hook.

What?

Again, really amazing details here.

There is no photo that can do this quilt justice. If you are still scrolling through all these pics, click on this twice to get the biggest image you can.  Please note that “white” is not a background fabric, but actually an embroidered pattern. Also, every flower, bee and butterfly is embroidered.

I hope this can give you more of an idea.

It took us 5 hours to get through this show and all the vendors and I took many, many more pics, but I think there’s only so many times I can use the word “love” in a single post. It was such a freaking blast. I also bought a bunch of fabric for my next project! I’m so inspired!

I bought a few things at the Quilt Show.

At Somers, I got this animal print that I ‘d like to make something for my niece with. She has a play kitchen so I’ve been thinking about an apron or some hot mitts, but I’m not sure how much use she’d get out of that. I think she’d love a bag, but the print is pretty large and I’d like to use all of the animals. I’m just not sure what to do.

I also purchased these prints at the quilt show for myself:

These actually go well with what I have leftover from my Mug Rug project. I just wish I knew how to make clothes.

I like the bold colors in this print. I think it would make beautiful kitchen curtains.

The last weekend of April, the Northern Star Quilters Guild had there annual show in Somers, NY.

It was a beautiful, cold spring day.

The raffle quilt was a take-off on Kaffe’s Bounce Quilt. Instead of snowball borders, they used pinwheels. I loved the look in pastels. It still doesn’t make me want to go back to that project yet though.

The halls of the high school were lined with vendors and the library was transformed into a “boutique.”

The quilts made by the guild members were displayed in the gym.

I’m planning to make a quilt with a few mariner’s compass blocks next. I was inspired by this sampler of them. I think the bottom center one seems the most reasonable for me to try.

Applique!

I love this quilt! My big plan is to make a quilt with all the mariners flags, which this quilter used as one of her borders. There are 26 flags and I want to make the four corners of the quilt mariners compasses. This quilt made me want to start immediately.

These cranes were 3D. Ill!

This quilter and her friend make the same quilt together every year. This was her version of their 2009 quilt. I love the idea of doing a complex project like this with a friend. I’m sure doing something like that would help me keep pace. Or at least keep sanity.

The women with white gloves! For you non-quilters, you have to ask these ladies to show you the backs of the quilts.

Love these colors and the thin sashing.

I’m forever impressed by tiny piecing.

Yes, this is a quilt. All those tiny black lines are strings of fabric. Mind blowing!

The first Seven Days of Christmas!

The rest of the days of Christmas. I want this.

Stars! Reminded me of the quilts from the 70’s I saw at the Folk Art Museum.

I purchased one fabric to make something for my niece, but I haven’t decided what to make yet.

Joanna S. Rose has been collecting red and white quilts since the 1950s. For her 80th birthday, her family decided to give her something she has never seen: all of her quilts hanging together at once. They also decided to give a present to New York City: a free exhibition of these quilts at the Park Avenue Armory.

The results were stunning.

I admit, after my first loop around, I was pretty overwhelmed.

But then I made a second loop. And the next day, a second visit. And the third day, a third visit.

I could see how someone could get attached to quilts like these.

There was no way to choose a favorite or even a favorite style. I just felt a deep sense of admiration for all these women who did this craft before me and the countless hours that went into creating all the quilts in that room.

When I think about the designs of my own quilts, I tend to put more time into choosing the color and shades of my fabrics rather than being picky about the pattern. What was so moving for me, is that these quilts take color and shade out of the equation and show the strength of the patterns and quilting alone. Although choosing the colors is one of my favorite parts, I feel inspired to challenge myself to make a quilt with more limited colors.

Last Saturday I went to the Quilt Fest of New Jersey and saw some beautiful things.

Each year Hoffman fabrics sends out a package of challenge fabric and asks contestants to use the fabric to make entries in three categories: quilts, clothing, and dolls. The dolls were phenomenal.

There were some really striking red & green quilts.

I just love these Santas.

Tea themed:

Detailed quilting on the border:

Many of Kaffe Fassett’s quilts were being shown. This is one I had been considering working on until I saw it up close and in person.

I couldn’t believe the detail that went into this ship quilt.

Not to mention the borders:

This quilt could never be done justice in a photograph. I have no idea how it was made.

I definitely enjoy looking at the patchwork quilts more than the art quilts, but I am drawn to anything witchy:

The quilt show in Somers, New York was beautiful.

I loved the examples of applique and embroidery and was inspired to give hand quilting another try.

The Winter Trees quilt was one of my favorite quilts. Trunks of three trees were embroidered on a pale blue fabric and white and blue iridescent beads made up the snow-covered branches.

This weekend I’m headed up to Somers, NY with my mom to check out the Quilt Show!

This weekend, the Quilters Guild of Brooklyn had a quilt show.

In January I took a class at City Quilter on machine quilting. I machine quilted Gwendo’s quilt prior to the class, but I used a walking foot to create a meandering line, which I now know was definitely the hard way. The introduction to machine quilting workshop gave me a lot of practice using the walking foot for STRAIGHT lines.

She also showed us how to make a quilt sandwich using two pieces of muslin and batting and then how to baste the sandwich using safety pins. I am really interested in machine quilting some of my lap-sized quilts, but I wanted to test the waters with a smaller project.

I began by taping the back of my quilt (right side down) to a large, hard surface. The instructor suggested using tables pushed together at a local school or community space because the floor is bad for your back. I prefer the comfort of home and am lucky enough to have just enough square footage of hardwood to do this project.

The bottom layer should be pulled taught. The second layer is the batting.

This is the cottony layer that makes the quilt warm and fluffy. This layer doesn’t need to be tight, just smooth.

I use Quilters Dream, which is a really soft all-cotton batting that is easy to sew through. I could also get away with quilting my lines far apart using this high-quality batting. I probably could’ve gone with a more budget brand since this quilt which will most likely be hung up or tossed around and not used for warmth.

Finally I laid the quilt top on the sandwich and smoothed it out flat. Here’s where my mistakes started!

I’m using an orange thread that will show up brightly on the back and front so I didn’t want to just stitch in the ditch. I planned to quilt a quarter inch in from the seam so the quilt would have a lot of little boxes within boxes. That is why I placed all the pins in the center of the squares.

When pinning the quilt, you are supposed to start in the center and move outwards.

I used curled safety pins to pin the quilt. These work well because as soon as you pop them in, they are curved up to pop back out. The label also promises they are “quilt safe.”

However, when I took them out:

Also, after I put them in, I realized the patchwork of the quilt seemed kind of web-like, and I decided to go with that theme and quilt a bunch of diagonal lines to make the orange thread look like a spider web across the whole quilt.

I wasn’t brave enough to wing it, so I had to draw guide lines AFTER I pinned it.

With the lines in place, quilting it actually happened pretty quickly.

Again, I started in the center and moved outwards.

I was able to finish the top in one rainy afternoon. The results look good from a distance, which is usually my goal.

Up close, I was unhappy with how the knots looked where the sewing started and stopped. The workshop leader said we could just shorten our stitch length as we got to the end, but I think even stitching is important throughout the quilt. I ended up just setting my stitch length to zero at the end and getting these balled up knots. I am not sure what the proper way to start and end a machine quilted stitch, but it’s something I definitely have to figure out before I put some of my more complex quilts under the needle.

Overall, I’m very happy with this little buddy. I got the goblin wizard panels and coordinating fabrics from a Quilt Show on Long Island this summer. I got the solids from The Cambridge Quilt Shop and the people helping me there were awesome. I went there with no real pattern in mind, but they were able to give me the right amount of fabric to make this all work.

I am tucking this away until it is closer to Halloween when I will curse having to work on the binding to finish it off.