QUILTCON THURSDAY02: Three talks and some quilts

Teresa talked very knowledgeably on "Made in Japan - cotton and idigo"

Teresa Duryea Wong

 the

The quilt we designed along with Latifah onscreen.
Illustrated the ins and outs of process

Latifah Saafir

Mary Fons was a veritable performer

Some categories such as Group Quilts are familiar ones but thers are design based such as "Use of Negative Space". Here are a couple of examples:

Cab you see what it says? The other F word appears in a different quilt in the show

Miriam Coffey: Ms Conceived

Jessica Wahl: Good Luck
Made from found fabric

Detail

Michelle Wilkie: San Francisco Bustle
Inspired by cable car stop and the bustle of surrounding crossroads and crosswalks.

QUILTCON FRIDAY: Special Exhibit Tour and Three Talks 01

Before the show opened I went on a pre-booked tour of the special exhibits led by Lisa Ellis, the President of SAQA,, Nancy Bavor director of San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Mary Fons who had curated the Aids Quilt Exhibit.
In a sense I feel SAQA realises there is something new happening and wants to be involved and also to show the original elements of the modern movement are building on past innovations of their members. As someone who has been interested in quilting and quilters past and present I enjoyed seeing early cutting edge works by quilting giants. The fact they may not seem so cutting edge now is tribute to their influence on those who followed.

Where Dreams Are Born by Joan Schulze 1976
Uses velour and a variety of fabric before quilting cottons were widely available.
It is also hand quilted and large before art quilts shrank.

Razzle Dazzle by Yvonne Porcella, founder of  SAQA 1981
No rotary cutter as yet but al by machine.

Michael James: Crosscurrents III 1990
Strip piecing continues to this day and he has had great influence though his
book and as a teacher.

Detail. Note the commercial fabric: I have the one with curves!

Nancy Crow #Study 11 1990
I was sorry this was such a small piece

Amelia Leigh (UK): Elizabethan II 2013

Maria Shell:  Tribe 2014

You can see the line following through the strips of Porcella,, then James to Maria Shell with Amelia Leigh using them in a more organic and somewhat representational way, Maria's work is instantly recognizable, interesting since she uses such a widespread piecing technique. Nanct Bevor mentioned her admiringly a few times.
Last Pasadena Maria submitted 6 quilts but all were rejected so she set up a site for her and other refusees to display their work. This time she has a prizewinning quilt in the show as well this one!

QUILTCON THURSDAY: Two talks and a class

I attended a couple of lectures, Kim Eichler-Messmer in the morning. It was fascinating to see how her work had changed gear over the years to the point now where she is translating her home dyed fabrics into a commercial fabric collection.
At the end of the day it was Christopher Thompson talking about fabric choices laying a heavy emphasis on fashion trends of which he has advance warning through his day job with Gap. He gets rid of any fabric he hasn't used after a year.

And another fbric collection

In the evening I did a class with Katie Pederson, much anticipated as I follow her blog SewKatieDid.
We had made stack and slash nine patches in advance and proceeded to stack and slash some more.

Katie

Some samples

A completed quilt

My trimmed blocks

 The classroom was very well equipped with a row of mats rulers and cutters at one side and the most wonderful Panasonic cordless irons on the other. I tone of these but cost a LOT . We used Janome 6700 machines and I have my eye on one. It was useful to have my queries answered by the onhand technician.

Oh those lovely irons

The spacious classroom.

QuiltCon Thursday: Charity Challenge

I arrived in time for the awards ceremony at 8 o' clock, not too much of a hardship as I wake up in the small ours still and in the gap before the first lecture I went and photographed some more group charity quilts which hung all around the walls of the lecture room as well as the lobby.
Last time I came the theme was improv which gave rise to some very higgledy piggledy unconsidered pieces whereas this year's "Modern Traditionalism theme led to some original and thoughtful results as you can see in the row of three below.

Three stunning quilts in a row, all referencing tradition.

This was hanging on the wall of the lecure hall and caught my attention even as I listened
to the speaker

Simple and effective color story

The fuk
ll quilt

Detail of my favourite

This was my favourite among the charity quilts. I especiall like fabrics.d the background

These ladies were rightly very proud of their quilt.

The modern element achieved through differences in scale.

quiltCon starts here

At five registration opened for QuiltCon. The long line was very orderly and good natured. My husband took my place for a spell while I took pictures of the the bee or group charity quits executed in response to a MQG set theme.

I was pleased to one of the first thousand to sign up on line so I gained a free goody bag which included a rotary cutter and three notebooks which is good because otherwise I was going to buy a set so I could take the odd note in lectures. All is now stowed away or set out to take tomorrow.

Fuzzy photo but I'm not getting everything out again!

Huntington Quilts

Quilts with lots of small blocks were
enjoyed by our predecessors too.

Beautiful Hand Quilting.

Today we visited the Huntington Gardens (mainly) but also the galleries. In the America section I was delighted to see a wall of vintage quilts and later a work by Robert Rauschenberg An artist whose work I am drawn to because in size and design it reminds me of quilts and inspires too.

Painting by Robert Rauschenberg

Ready to roll

Here I am in front of the main QuiltCon building but the show doesn't  start till Thursday so we are sightseeing.

Getting ready for QuiltCon

I have been sewing stack and slash 9-Patches in preparation for a workshop with Katie Pederson in Pasadena. We only have 3 hours so this will give us a head start. I used a plains layer cake to cut the eighteen 8.5 inch squares to make 18 9-Patches.

Sewing day

Four of us me up for a very pleasant day of sewing and lunch. Judi with pressing help from Mel put together the DNP batik blocks she and Castle Wall Quilters had made, I finished sewing the blue and white ones and in the afternoon we had a jolly time making maverick triangle variation blocks.

Blocks of warm and cool colours

Maverick blocks

And more

1998 quilt "Starry Slumbers"

Our group's raffle quilt will be the same pattern as one I made in 1998 from a pattern by either Sara Nephew or Mary Hickey. I can't remember which as both were included in the book which I've lent to the quilt committee. I have two blocks to do and two to deliver to another member. To help her understand the various versions of  the blocks I sent her these pictures of my version.

Detail