After a couple of years of missing this show, I finally made it back to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, Va. I enjoy going to this show; it's a nice size and only about 3 hours away from me.
When I first started going to quilt shows, I'd take pictures of every quilt there. Now I'm much more selective and photograph only those that speak to me in some way. That's not to say that those I didn't take pictures of aren't beautiful and worthy of winning, my tastes just run a little different these days. I also found that even though I didn't take pictures of every quilt, I still managed to get quite a few. So I'm going to break this up into several smaller posts - grouping 'like' quilts.
This first group showcase some of my favorites. Basically because I'm an animal lover. With 4 cats and a dog, I have to be! I'd love to have this quilt hanging in my house. It didn't win any awards, but was definitely Viewer's Choice for me...
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| 'Caught in the Act' by Barbara McKie |
This quilt is 29" x 32.5" and is "disperse dyed digital print, thread painted, trapunto relief, machine appliqued and machine quilted."
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| 'Caught in the Act' closeup |
Don't you think this cat looks a lot like my Jack?
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| My kitty Jack |
I also found this donkey quilt quite captivating. It looks like you can reach out and pet them (although I've heard that they bite?)
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| 'Look Who's Coming' by Deborah H. Droog |
This next quilt won a blue ribbon for 'Best Use of Color' in the Innovative category. (I don't know if I just haven't been that observant, but there seemed to be a lot of ribbons for categories I didn't know existed.) I think she did a fantastic job of displaying the squirrels.
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| 'The Squirrel's Speech' by Barbara McKie |
Would you believe I only just realized while writing this post that the cat quilt and squirrel cat are both made by Barbara McKie? I definitely like her style. This one is 63.25" square and is "machine pieced and quilted with hand-dyed cotton and disperse dyed fabrics."
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| 'The Squirrel's Speech' closeup |
The last animal quilt I'm going to show today is more whimsical than the others, but I think it's bright and a lot of fun.
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| 'Rare Birds' by Rachel Wetzler |
In her description, Rachel says "Rare Birds caricatures my quilt critique group." It is machine pieced, machine appliqued and machine quilted. What a cute quilt and so well done!
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| 'Rare Birds' closeup |
One of the things I found myself paying close attention to in all the quilts was the machine quilting. I think because I have so many tops I need to quilt myself. It's amazing how intricate and detailed the quilting is on most of them. Next time I'll show some of my favorite machine quilting from this show. When I grow up, I hope to one day be half as good as they are!
Until later...
“Truth, wisdom, learning, and good sense—these are worth paying for, but too valuable for you to sell.”
Proverbs 23:23 (TEV)
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That kitty does look like Jack! It is a fantastic quilt! So realistic! The Donkeys and squirrels are neat, too. I love the Whimsy of the rare birds!
ReplyDeleteWe are going to the Dallas show tomorrow and on Sunday our 18 year old grand daughter is going. She loves to look at the quilts and try to figure how they were made.
SHe studies the machine quilting, too. She has played with the long arms at the show in the past and is a natural! Wish I could afford one for her to use.
Hopefully I will get a quilt post up this evening. It has been a hard week. We had to have the Granddaughters cat to sleep. He was sick, but the vets could not tell what was wrong. He was in pain, renal failure and his temp would not come up above 94.