Quilters love quilt shows, don't we? Rob and I haven't been to a show since 2018, the year our quilt show buddy Linda passed away. We took her to the Georgetown quilt show in March and by the Austin show in September, she had passed. We didn't want to go to the Georgetown show in the next year and then neither group had a show in 2020. I think we were both excited to go this year. As men who are interested in and know something about quilts, we get lots of attention at shows. Here are a few favorites. It's so hard to pick a few for the blog, I'd love to show them all!
Love the colors in this one.
And, in this one. I'm getting very partial to blue and yellow.
Probably partial to flower appliqué because I'm making a flower appliqué quilt. This one was beautiful. I love how it's not on a grid and uses different backgrounds in each block.
Beautiful swan appliqué! This is from a first time exhibitor.
More bold colors. I love paper pieced quilts.
This is a stunning pattern! I know lots of people have made it, and that just proves that it's a great pattern!
I loved this quilt. It's a Dios de los Muertos celebration of the quilters friend and is named Rita Dance Broadway. A lot of love went into that quilt by another first time exhibitor.
And, of course, my loot from the vendor mall. The vendor mall at a show must be very lucrative. We're there, we're inspired, we're saturated in color and we want to take some of it home. So, while Rob had pie, I spent money. The little fan of fabric at the bottom is what I collected "in a theme" from this show. I love to pick a set of fabrics and keep them together to make make a commemorative project. I used a lot of my event selections in the feathered star quilt I assembled last year. They're great reminders of an event.
I'm going to be controversial about quilting for a minute. When I started quilting 20 years ago, there were still rumblings from a battle between quilters about whether machine quilted quilts even counted as quilts for shows. I know this because my favorite work was very dense quilting that needed to be done by machine or would have taken forever, and the books I read and teachers I studied talked about this "revolution" in the quilting world when more modern quilters were starting to quilt by machine and traditional quilters thought of that as "cheating". To resolve that, machine quilted categories had to be added to shows. It feels like something similar is happening today between quilts made by one person and quilts being quilted by professional long arm quilters. The work I do on my domestic machine is quite different than what a professional can do on a computerized long arm machine. Don't get me wrong. Professionals are doing beautiful work on these quilts, things that would be very hard to do on a domestic. But, machine quilted categories need to be subdivided so that those of us who are doing this work on our domestic machines can compete separately from quilters using a very different tool to add that beautiful quilting.
(steps down from soapbox).
Other than the quilt show, it was a busy week at work and I spent as much time in the garden as I could. The iris have started to bloom and that means there should be something in bloom in my garden from now until New Year's. I hope the hot weather we're having isn't indicative of what the rest of the year is going to be like. 90* in March is not normal or welcome.
Quilters don't mend, but I had a shirt that needed mending. I'd split out the underarm somehow and one night at dinner, I raised my arm while telling a story and Rob saw it. The shirt has hung in the studio since last summer, waiting for me to get around to repairing it and I finally got to that this weekend. I decided I needed to finish something before I think about starting a new project with those fabrics I collected at the show. ll fixed now and you can't even tell there was a problem. A stitch, in time, saves nine, right?
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I want to share something I saw on Facebook. It's never a surprise that someone else is feeling the same thing I'm feeling. I was taught that actions speak louder than words and that's never been more true than it is today. I observe, and my observations affect how I feel about and interact with those around me. I may not give voice to it. But it does affect me.
Everybody have a great week! I'll be working away and thinking about fabric and trying to make time for a new project. I think something mini. I've pulled out my books by Susan Collins, the master of precision piecing but just can't settle on anything and don't want to pick the wrong project for those beautiful fabrics.
10 comments:
I heartily agree that types of machine quilted should be divided! I’d like to see a domestic machine category, a person-guided longarm category, and a computerized longarm category. I purchased a longarm this past fall (the 8’ Moxie by Handi Quilter) and am enjoying it so much. But it’s also shown me how different the different longarm machines are! There is a computerized system available for this machine, but I don’t have it. What I can do is very different from what a computerized machine could stitch out, especially mine compared to a real professional longarm machine! The Moxie was created as a *home* longarm machine — smaller and fewer features at a much lower price point. It’s not as smooth as a professional machine, and of course I also don’t have the computerized version. Maybe I could say that it’s like a basic Chevy compared to a self-driving Tesla? It’s affordable and gets the job done for me! Anyway, all tools have different limits, and I absolutely think that longarming should be separated from quilting on a domestic machine! I’m further suggesting a separation for computerized longarming though.
Thanks for everything you had to say today!
I completely agree with you and Suzanne. All 3 types of quilting require an artistic vision, but the tools used can give very different results.
I agree that there should be different categories concerning how a quilt was quilted. There should be traditional hand quilting, domestic machine, hand guided long arm and computerized long arm. Thanks for sharing and for showing some different quilts. I really miss going to quilt shows.
The attitude that "quilters don't mend" has always confused me. I have a machine and the skill set that most girls and young women today lack, and I'm happy to share my talents (or use them for my own benefit). Now, a close friend who needs her cut-offs hemmed is a much different category than an acquaintance who's husband's shirts need some mending. In the first case, I'm happy to bring my little Janome Jem with me and hem while we visit. In the second case, I offer an invoice of what I expect to be paid for each item, and see where it goes from there. But to act like some forms of sewing are beneath one's dignity? I just can't quite wrap my head around that.
"That's like asking Michelangelo to paint your bedroom!" Who's to say he wouldn't enjoy a different task once in a while? I should think he'd like doing something sitting up for a change.
Carolyn
And by "sitting" I meant "standing". I was picturing him at a sewing machine for some crazy reason.
Where's that coffee pot?
Carolyn
Great post. Thanks for sharing. Mary
Hmmm...most quilt show entries that I've seen DO have different categories for the different machines that are used. Perhaps that's only in larger shows, but there certainly are major differences and they need to be judged differently! The quilt world is dynamic and ever changing and 'judgements' need to change and grow as well!
Those are some great quilts. That quote you’ve posted is so important to all of us who are minorities of any kind. Thank you for sharing it.
I remember the first time I saw a programmed sewing machine quilt a perfect star in a carefully placed quilt block. My immediate thought was that I'd never bother trying to match that precision if I had that machine capability.
I did not invest and I infinitely admire your quilting. A program cannot problem solve and innovate, though I will give you that a professional quilter can do those things.
I can hope they divide the categories as I agree. What I would really like to see at the show is CREDIT to the person who designed the quilt. The last show I visited had so many quilts made from commercial patterns with no credit given to the pattern designer. I loved the interpretation but I could not vote viewers choice to the favorite quilt because they failed to acknowledge the pattern they used...
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