Sunday, January 17, 2010

Quilt National

We went to see the Quilt National show at the Rife Gallery today. Since it was the last day of the show, it was now or never. We were not allowed to take photos, even though someone else there took plenty. I decided to follow the rules. Couldn't take photos outside either because it was raining.

So many beautiful quilts. My mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew and I went. I kept looking at all the techniques, and thinking that I should make a quilt like that. Not to copycat, but to be inspired by the technique. So many quilts, so little time. Hopefully I can make little quilts using the techniques. Here is a link to some of the quilts we saw. Not all of these quilts were in the gallery.

Africa Scarified is made of squares of fabric which may have been appliqued instead of pieced. There were a lot of beads, and couched yarn to make an aerial scene. Wonderful! I would love to make something like this.

Falling Leaves probably starts with a base of the trees, but then has snippets all over for the leaves. There is also a path you can't see in the photo. The artist statement said she used scraps leftover from all the other projects, separated by colors. It is then closely free motion quilted. We tried to see traces of tulle, but we didn't see any. I'm not sure what was used to keep the fabrics in place until it could be sewn down. Another technique I definitely want to do.

Miscellany is also a wonderful use of leftover fabric. Make little blocks - these look like they are probably paper pieced, and over time a new quilt is born.

There were a couple of portrait quilts. One was made of dotted fabric squares. There was also a portrait made of yoyos. The shading was then painted on. My mother thought this would be wonderful to do with her mother's clothing. She said she will ask her sister if the clothing is still available. She even said she would help make the yoyos.

Did you notice, all of my favorite quilts make it much harder to throw away even tiniest bits of fabric! I think all these ideas would work with my plan to use up the fabric when I make a quilt to storing avoid leftover scraps.

1 comment:

Allie said...

Oh how I love quilt shows!!! I would've kept the camera put away too, I'm always afraid someone will confiscate it, lol.
I love the quilt by Kathy York, Little Fish in a Big City...I saw some close-ups on her blog. And I LOVE Miscellany. Nice quilts! Like you, I want to try the techniques on SMALL quilts - just in case, lol.