QUILT CON: Applique

The categories seem to be design or technique based. Here are quilts from the applique section and I've included the winners because I like them.

Diane Vandeyar: Tropical Delirium
A free form version of Hawaiian patchwork with wayward quilting.

Laura Hartrich: Train track pennies
References the pennies squashed on the railway behind her childhood house,.
 Made from her grandmother's clothes and the shorthand symbols list some
of  her grandmother's qualities. A memory quilt with layers of meaning.

Detail. I used to squash our larger pennies on the railway line. I can remember the train driver shaking his fist,
(understandably in retrospect).

Detail: how lovely

Virginia Robinson: Fauchet
Quilter: Suzen deSerres
Based on her great aunt Lizzie's crocheted Afghan squares.
3rd prizewinner

Karen Maple: Black, Brown and White in Orange
A comment on the US prison system which incarcerates a much larger proportion of the
population than European countries and a disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics.
She asked how you would spend your days with little to do dressed in orange.
This won second prize and made its point subtlely in a pleasing quilt.

Detail

Natalie Skinner: Quarter Turn
Needleturn applique using Carolyn Friedlander fabrics and machine quilted
with a 1" grid 

Debbie Grifka: Canterbury #2
Inspired by a picture of a corridor near the Cathedral cloister. Eliminates colour and focuses
on the  bare bones of the architexture. The judges seemed drawn to such pared down quilts.
First prizewinner.

QUILTCON: Handwork

I think it is so lovely the modern movement has a special section for handwork when more traditional shows don't.

Detail: the hand quilting on the top layer is all that secures the colourful fabrics underneath

Heidi Parkes: But I need to remember
Incorporates inherited and new fabric: a quilt full of resonance.

Tara Faughnan: Courthouse Steps
Two years ago I remember Tara's quilts as quite complex. The two I saw this reverted to a
stripped down simplicity and plainness

Detail of minimal hand quilting

Tara Faughnan:String Star Quilt
She had been working wiith star shape and made this to deal with a build up of strips.
Hand quilted

MY FAVOURITES

I loved the design, loved the fabrics and the pieced units in this charity quilt.

Detail

And now my favourite from the non juried charity challenge and the one I voted my Best of Show, well not sure it was THE best but it was one I related too - can't shake off my traditional.roots even at QuiltCon though there too the links with the past were clear to see. We all build on what has gone before.

Home

The view from there and the view from here.

View from the hotel window

Home to snow and the view from my window but California was unseasonably chilly too.

I have tried not to show award winners  as these appear elsewhere but weakened near the close and took pictures of some major prize winners.

This was the raffle quilt and yes I bought tckets and no I didn;t win though I sat by as the winner was drawn feeling hopeful as I had already won the first door prize (a layer cake) in Katie Pederson's class. it went to someone called Julie.

sarah Bond : Ribbon quilt
eQuilter prize for quilting excellence
This would be a surprise to some as the quilting was vertical straight lines but the
 thread colour altered to suit the fabric.
Personally I thought some quilts were compromised by fancy scrolly FMQ.
A simpler approach seemed to work better in most cases.

Detail

Sandra Kaye: Happy Dance with 600 crosses. Sandra is new to the Modern Quilting
movement but won the Best Machine Quilting Frameless prize.

Detail

Stephane Scardal: Going Up
BEST OF SHOW
someone I sat next too wasn't impressed with this choice but sometimes less is more.

Detail

On my last wander through the naturally lit room devoted to quilts I came across some bustle and the "Visitors' Choice went to   . " And Anna Maria Horner got in on the picture?
This quilt had a personal message. There were many using words but were what I would call "admonishment quilts" (more later).

Liz with Anna Maria Horner

Detail

Sunday Talks

First block in Katie Wilkins' Milestone quilt

Ben age two receiving the quilt flanked by his siblings

Both sides of the temperature quilt.

Katie with completed quilt

The hiking adventures quilt

I watched three and a bit talks on Sunday. First up was Quilts to Mark Milestones by Katie Wilkin.I wasn't quite sure what this meant but it turned out that when their third child, Ben, was born Katie and her husband joked that there would be hardly any pictures of him - third child syndrome. So Katie resolved to make a block a month and to document her progress. So each month she made a log cabin block and take a picture of Ben alongside which would record his development month to month for a year. When Ben received the completed quilt on his second birthday it was clear he regarded it as something special. Katie went on to make a further quilt depicting the weekly hikes she did with other mums and children over the summer holidays. She also showed a temperature quilt made by her friend, Cindy Wiens where different shades represented daily temperatures.
Next up was the wonderful  Judy Gauthier's talk on Strategies for Modern Scrap Quilting. She was very clear to listen to. There was a promotional element for her Bungalow shop and books but also lots of information  about techniques and fabric choices and ways of incorporating older and ugly fabric in a modern looking quilt. She used a camera to aid little demos which appeared on screen. And she showed lots of quilts to illustrate her points. I was impressed! 

Judy and helper with her latest and second book title (which I bought along with the first)

JG Quilt incorporates lots of small scraps

JG Owls

JG: Older scraps transformed by modern
background fabrics.

JG monochromatic palette

JG quilt

JG's personal favourite

I would set these blocks straight
rather than on point

JG quilt

JG quilt

JG quit with blocks as sashing

Final JG quilt here

The third talk went well over time as Sherri Lynn Wood was so passionate about her current preoccupation with Passage Quilts and the Bereavement Process.  Her mother's clothes had been shared out between family members and quilts made from them Hers was on the platform for us to see. She liked to maintain the structure of the clothing in the quilts. She had gone on to make bereavement quilts for others, to work with the bereaved in making their quilt or to enable them to make their own. She found in most cases two years at least would elapse before a bereaved person could make their quilts. Other quilts documented divorce or menopause.
I had to give up on the Panel as I couldn't tell what any of the speakers were saying!

A man's quilt

Sherri's quilt of her mother's clothes draped over the podium table.

Th clothes of Sherri's grandmother with many "housecoats".