Long Beach Quilt Show–New Quilts

First the whine.

Studio Art Quilters Association had a large medium number of studio artists exhibiting their work, but alas, no photographs.  While I understand their need to “protect” their work from Evil Unscrupulous Folks, not allowing photographs is not allowing people to interact with their work in a reflective way.  Many times the lighting is so dim  that I enjoy going home to review my photographs on the computer.  I would have been happier if they’d said, “Photos allowed, but no posting to blogs or commercial uses.”  That would make more sense to me. {Note: in the comments today was an alternative: buying their catalogue (link included).  Okay, a reasonable suggestion, but I still would not have the same enjoyment in looking at their photographs as getting in close to photograph it myself and enjoy.}

Whine over.

Kathleen H. McCrady patterned her Sawtooth X quilt after an old one from 1875, using reproduction fabrics in brighter colorways.

Detail of above

Another quilt that used the old quilts as a springboard was this one, with busy, modern fabric behind a very traditional Rose of Sharon block.

Metropolis in Bloom, detail
by Kathryn Botsford

Again, let me reiterate that this show is not strong (I think) on variety, depth and breadth of their quilt exhibit. One intriguing idea was to contact a guild and have them exhibit works by their members.  While this might be a good idea, if you’ve ever gone to a (non-juried) guild show you know you get the range of quilts from excellent to should-have-stayed-in-the-closet.  The quilt above was the only one to make the cut for this blog, although I enjoyed seeing these quilts from Canada.  Another portion of the exhibit was organized by a well-known quilter, Gyleen Fitzgerald, who worked around the theme of Trash to Treasure.  She encouraged her participants to take those miniature scraps we all toss and make a treasure out of them.  She chose to use the Pineapple Quilt Block as the criteria. I love this block so here are few that were interesting.

Pineapple Salsa, Too by Barbara A. Johnston.
She combined the idea of the pineapple block with her enjoyment of hot peppers for this quilt.

My notes are not as clear as I’d like, but I believe this is titled Chaos and Relief and is by Ann Hein. [Note: Ann has left a comment giving us more information about her quilt–thanks!]

This one is Gyleen’s quilt and is called Picadilly Square, and is quilted by Beth Hanlon-Ridder.  The use of a large-scale print in the borders, and fussy cut for the centers is intriguing.  One of the vendors had this fabric and people were lined up to buy it. {In the comments, Gyleen says she didn’t fussy cut–very cool, then, how it all came out.}

Detail of above.  I like the quilting.

Really Red, by Charlotte Noll
She revealed in her notes that Gyleen had a “Trash to Treasure” Pineapple Tool that she used to make the quilt.  Ah, another way to market something.  I did think this was a stunning quilt.

Blueberries and Pineapples . . . Yum, by Florence Gray.
A bigger pitch in her notes about the tool.  And by the way, after seeing the name of this quilt, I think some of us quilters could stand some tutoring in effective titles. I admit I sometimes struggle too.  I’ve taken to using an old quote book that I found at an estate sale, for it contains lots of bits of old verse, sayings and poetry that have inspired me. Perhaps we quilters get so tired by the end of the quilt, we take the easy way out and just make simple word associations without thinking about how those titles will play out long-term.

Birds Fly Over the Rainbow, by Barbara Polston, quilted by Beth Hanlon-Ridder.
Nice title.  Nice use of the flying geese block in the border.

Harvesting Pineapples. . . Out of Thin Air, by Mary Jo Yackley.

Pineapple Daiquari, by Rellajeanne Cook, quilted by Dottie Bettiker.
What makes this quilt unusual is the quilter’s pun of using a traditional Hawaiian-quilting-style center block in the middle of a pineapple quilt.

Detail of above quilt.

Lunar Pineapple, by Barbara Vedder.  Why the fish border?  She liked it.  Although perhaps it detracts from the quilt with its bold coloration (I would have preferred to focus in on the colorful centers than been distracted by that part of the border), I think the use of black is intriguing in the pineapple block.  Okay, end of Pineapple Block quilts.

Bodil Gardner, from Denmark, memorialized a wedding day in her quilt Show me the road to Timbuktu, Take my hand and let us go.

Units 9, by Benedicte Caneill is one of those quilts I admire, but know I’ll probably never do.  She used a Rail Fence block as a basis for exploring the use of “geometric units. . . [to] create an abstract cityscape composition.”  So then I tried to figure out what the basic Rail Fence unit was.

This one?

Or this one?  She printed her own designs on the fabric.  It was very interesting, quite fascinating.

This woman confronted all her forays to the vendors’ booths in My Stash at 50 (aka Log Cabin with an Attitude). Karen Eckmeier gave herself a challenge to celebrate her 50th birthday by using only fabrics from her “stash;” each block had to contain 24 different fabrics.  She also used her “layered-top stitching technique” in the construction.  This was great!

Detail of above (click to enlarge in order to see her technique).

This work, Duck and Cover by Kathy York, “references the absurd survival strategy from the 1950s for surviving an atomic bomb blast to the current crisis of the failing economy.”  I like it when quilters take on current events, interpreting them in their own fashion.

Here’s another by the same quilter: Red Legged Bird with a Tale to Tell. This is a parable of Wall Street this past year, and she writes in the notes that “the bird is a mockingbird, mocking us as we watch him get away with a suitcase full of money.”  Click to enlarge and see the money fluttering out from the escaping bird’s suitcase.

This last quilt I’ll show you was a small quilt, but a little gem.  Titled Fields of Gold and made by Sarah Ann Smith, it had lovely quilting to carry the motif out into the large border.

Click to enlarge if you wish to see the detail of the waving stalks of wheat or the strata of the sky (below).

All in all, I had a fun day, getting new ideas, escaping the house before I headed up to see family the next week.  Now I guess the challenge to to get all the projects all sewn up!