Road to California Quilt Show, 2017

January 23, 2017March 14, 2017 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

The Road to California Quilt Show was held this past weekend, and I think it was my 22nd year of going…or something like that. The highlights for the first day are found on my Instagram Account ( as well as some found in #roadtocalifornia2017), but here are quilts that I didn’t post up.

This was the gallery for the Art Abstract quilts, and yes. They were abstract. Sometimes it’s helpful just to see how they are laid out.

I liked the collage effect of this one by Jean Impey, titled Ernestine Benito. It was started in a class with Susan Carlson, using “Susan’s collage techniques as well as some ‘reckless and raw edge’ appliqué and India Inks.”

Jean Impey also made Dance in the Wind, started in a class with another teacher who “taught me how to look at something and abstract it, to see things in different colors.”

Birth of a Storm is by Betty Hahn, who used the “color and movement of the Doppler radar forecasts of tropical storms” as her inspiration.

Orange You Glad I Got the Blues? is by Mel Beach, representing the “influence of improvisation within Jazz music.

The tape keeping people out was placed too far out this year, so the only way I could photograph these horses was side-by-side. The one on the left is White Knight, by Patt Blair. The one on the right is Wendy Knight’s Here’s Looking’ at You. I was mesmerized by her quilting, shown in the next images.

Cynthia England’s Reflections of Cape Town took a year to make and has about 8400 individual pattern pieces in it. Detail of this is below.

This small quilt, probably 14″ by 18″ is loaded with buttons. Beacon, by Susan Bianchi, represents her “impression of an antique lighthouse lens and prism.”

Kona Fabrics had a series of small quilts (around 16″ square) using that bright lemony yellow from last year (above and below). There was also a wonderful exhibit by Cherrywood Fabrics of Lion King, but I could never get a good shot at it as people were always looking at them all closely.

Peony, by Sarah Ann Smith, is a stunning blossom interpreted in fabric.

But I couldn’t help constrasting it with the bluesy-purpled Blue Anemone, by Andrea Brokenshire, admiring its use of periwinkle, turquoise and other colors, and that exquisite quilting.

Overall impressions (including these and the images on Instagram): thankfully the use of sparkly bling has fallen to new lows, with the few quilts that did add crystals keeping them to appropriate usage. Margaret Solomon Gunn’s quilts (here and here) are always exquisite, and I realize that I’m never going to measure up to her long-arm quilting skills. In fact, I heard the moans of “I’m not good enough” over and over. Aside from the usual don’t-compare-yourself-to-others cliches that I could offer, I say the only good remedy for that one is to go home and make a one-patch quilt and have something to show for your time, and that will allow you to realize that every quilt has a beauty all its own. We have quilt shows to admire the best of the best, and the others and to use them to inspire us.

I was very happy to see my friend Simone’s quilts hanging in the show (here and here), as well as other people I know. Those friendships are what tie us all together in our quilting community.

I didn’t choose a “Most Ugly” quilt this year, although there were several that might have qualified. And I’ve decided to change that award to “Didn’t Live Up To Its Promise” so as not to offend.

I took two classes; one was awesome and the other — even though the teacher was so nice and knew her stuff–not worth it. Why? Because they sent a long-armer to do teaching about quilting on a domestic machine. And because they made us use machines that were difficult to use, and we spent a ton of time re-threading them, fighting their built-in stitch regulators and waiting for the tech to come. And because when we showed up, these complicated machines were not threaded or ready for sewing, so we spent nearly 90 minutes of class time getting them up to snuff.

One last gripe: the practice of teachers charging us Beaucoup Bucks for our “kits” of materials that we have at home, for supplies that we already own, and for threads that we don’t care to try. Unless it’s some specialty item that we wouldn’t think to buy, I’d prefer a teacher include a detailed supply list for us to bring. Yes, we will buy the teacher’s stuff in class if we forget ours, or hunt for it down on the vendor floor, but I now have another blue marking pen, two spools of thread that I probably won’t use again (I’m a Superior Thread fan) and a 18″ by 44″ marked quilt sandwich. Those three things cost me $45 (!).

I like having such a high-quality show so close to me, and I enjoy seeing my “yearly” friends. I heard lots of gripes about no printed showbooks, the cheezy Road to California bag, and no lanyard-style name tag holders (and no, I’m not buying their blue Road badge holder), but I think we were all happy to be there.

Until next year, Road!

A Look at the Quilts at Quilt Market 2016

June 15, 2016June 14, 2016 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

First, I need to report on the giveaway held in the last post–all your comments were terrific! and seemed to be a healthy range from “just the kids” to “adults have a great time, too.” I really liked the ones that said to include them both–so now you know.

The winner was Number 7. . . and it was Leslie, so I’ll get those shipped out to her right away so she can keep going on her Halloween quilt. She wrote: I do miss the homemade donuts that our neighbor used to make and for which we, as children, would double back around for. Now it’s only wrapped candies, and we Moms all sort even those for scary things, but I do like Leslie’s perspective. Okay, here we go with the quilts.

Tutti-Frutti Alleyway, by Susan Bleiweiss. She writes: “This quilt is part of my ongoing series of art quilts which celebrate the use of vibrant color and whimsical imagery.” 5347 Redfox Circle. . . Blueprint of a Life, by Sandra Branford. Her artist’s statement: “Using my collage skills, I created a fantasy story board of my imaginative home. Through my original designs, I define myself and take the viewers on a journey through my mind. . . some wit, a few brains, and loads of imagination.”

And as an English teacher, I smiled when I saw the misspelling in this text. (You’ll have to find it yourself, and no, it’s not “hors d’oeuvres.”) Whenever I find typos and misspellings in things I write, I die a little of embarrassment, so I understand how things can get overlooked.

Trilogy, by Peggy Brown. “My goal,” she writes, “was to start with a painted free-flowing design, add collage and overlays of more paint, and compose a well-designed and unique painting on fabric — an art quilt.”

Pink Bird, by Judy Coates Perez (Check out the quilting in the following photos!) She write that she likes “painting images inspired by nature, using photos of real birds as reference for a pose, then altering them graphically; simplifying details, creating new patterns, and choosing different colors to create unique stylized birds and plants.”

Long Winter Flower Basket Sampler, by Eileen Daniels. During a “long, cold winter in Wisconsin” she “became addicted to embroidery.” She writes that she “spent hours listening to podcasts by Jonathan Welton and to my husband reading books aloud as I designed and embroidered this quilt.”

I noticed more embroidery in this show than I’ve seen before–a welcome addition!

Cuban Ballerina, by Jennifer Day. She writes: “This quilt is based on a photograph that I took of a ballerina with the National Cuban Ballet in Havana. She is dancing in a wonderful old building built in the early 1900s that has fallen into ruin since 1959. This quilt is a testament to the young ballerina who is gracing the building with her beauty in dance.”

More threadwork, but this time by machine. It was stunning.

Nancy Rehak‘s Tea for Two. “Inspired by Cindy Needham,” she writes, “I took an old tablecloth of my mom’s and created a quilt. It was a challenge for me to design my quilting to highlight the tablecloth. I named it Tea for Two because my dad used to sing that song to us when we were little.”

A Tree Grows in Tokyo, by Helen Ridgeway and her friends: Anita Crane, Mary Ann Hildebrand, Linda Humphrey, Marilyn Lampman, Holly Nelson, Bonnie Sprado and Barbara Woodman. The artists’ statement reads: “This was a collaboration by the eight members of the Sew Be It Bee. We each hand appliquéd a block from Kumiko Sudo’s book. One of our members, Mary Ann Hildebrand, designed and made the tree, using a scrunching technique, and made the cherry blossoms out of Yo-yos from a synthetic fabric.”

Gillian Shearer’s Eager to Learn – Afghanistan. “In 2011, in Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan, Ellend Jaskol recorded this image of two girls eager to learn at a new school in Sust,” she writes. “They were studying in a temporary tent until the school was completed. The power of educating girls is slowly breaking through. ‘When you educate a girl, you educate a nation.’ ”

Journey, by Grace Sim. She writes that “This quilt allowed me to try techniques I have wanted to try for a long time — fabric manipulation, liberated blocks, crazy quilting, modern quilting, Broderie Perse, and the use of buttons and crystals. I used them to form my favorite Italian landscape.”

More quilts are coming.

I realized in doing this post that if a person desires to become a quilt artist, it’s pretty important that they create a place in space to reside: whether it be a blog page, or a gallery of images, or just a single place where people like me can go and search in order to read more about them. There are many platforms that can be used: Instagram, Pinterest, blogging, Tumblr, etc.

I was unsuccessful in a finding a couple of the above artists. In this day and age of >instant< and >quick< and rushrushrush there is a tendency to overlook the long form of blogs. But they become important when looking at the bigger picture, or, your journey as a quilter. So if you are just starting, you might consider building your own little place where people can find you. While there may not be much more than four walls and a piece of carpet (where others might have several fully-furnished rooms), it will be your space.

Quilts

Busy Quilty Weekend

September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This past Friday night was our little quilt group’s Quilt Night. We hold it the first Friday night of just about every month, taking off some here and there. Lisa (on the left) and I founded The Good Heart Quilters when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is will soon be 18. Hard to think we’ve been going that long! On the right is Charlotte, one of our newer members, and Lisa’s running/marathon buddy. Why are they smiling? I cleaned out my fabric stash this past month and brought all the leftovers for them to claim.

Speaking of pregnant ladies, Tiffiny, on the left, is waaaay pregnant and due this week. (So far, no news.) She is our bonafide Newest Member, but I’m guessing with a new baby, we won’t be seeing her for a while. She’s helping Lisa hem and sew buttons on band uniforms (Lisa is a parent volunteer). See? We don’t always do quilts. We want Tiffiny to come any time she wants to as she brought us all a yummy key lime pie. Treats are always a good thing at Quilt Night.

And still speaking of pregnant ladies, Caitlin (on the left) is due in January. Simone (on the right) and I rounded out the group and we are definitely NOT pregnant. A small gathering, but fun. And with great treats that everyone brought.

I kicked them all out 10 p.m. because the next day I had to leave at 7 a.m. to head to San Diego to the San Diego Quilt Show, where I was taking a Free Motion Quilting Class with Sue Rasmussen. She was great. The class started out with a comprehensive overview of needles and threads, but soon we launched into hands on FMQ. I had taken a class with another instructor about twelve years ago and a lot of what I know now I’ve gleaned through books, internet and Instagram. So I thought it was time to do something classroom-y again.

We learned about hand position, speed, foot control and the all important wild card of what to do when our brain kicks in with questions like “Should this be a feather?” or “You really messed up there.” She also taught us three methods for starting and stopping, and kept the class moving with good demos and good advice. I’m now totally intimidated on submitting anything to a show as she clued us in to some things she looks for in a show quilt (she’s often a judge). Thankfully she didn’t say “sparkles.”

I had an hour for lunch, see the show, and visit the vendors’ booths. I raced through it, so didn’t have time to grab names or titles of quilts (sorry) but here’s a few photos that I grabbed as we zipped by.

This French landscape is Sue Rasmussen’s. You can bet I looked closely at the quilting. (It was perfect.)

She actually had three of these trees, all in different color ways and different fabrics. It was fascinating to see how different they all were.

I loved this fun quilt, but it didn’t win the Modern Quilt category prize. (Inconceivable!)

Great quilting, eh?

This one won first prize in the Modern Quilt category. Hmmmm. I see “improv piecing” which seems to be a criteria (or at least according to Road to California’s blurb when I took a look at it this morning). That’s it? Improv piecing as the only qualifier for Modern? Oh, that and “significant negative space,” or something like that. I hate these seemingly artificial qualifiers and divisions. Like Leanne of She Can Quilt says, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Back to class for another few hours. Here are some of Sue’s samples. I really enjoyed her class and was glad I made the effort.

On the long drive home, there is this elegant bridge spanning the wide freeway. When I see this, I know I’m halfway home. It was a good weekend, with good friends and experiences, but heading home is what I like to do most.

Quilts

A Grand Day Out: The Valley Quilters Quilt Show

February 24, 2014February 23, 2014 Elizabeth E.3 Comments

It was a beautiful day that the Valley Quilters held their quilt show, and I had a morning free, so I headed down to Hemet, about 40 minutes away from my house. I like going to this small show–it’s kind of the antidote to all the craziness and glitz and flash and overwhelmingness that is Road to California.

This is it. I think they had about 50 or so quilts. I was joking to one woman that it was the tonic that cured me of my exhaustion from Road. “Oh, Road!” she said. “Too much walking.”

This is what greets you, as you enter the community center gymnasium: Glacier Star, by Shirley Mykris and quilted by Diane Best. I meandered through their display, so these quilts are in no particular order.

This Is Me, by Beckie Stabile and quilted by Marvel Dorf. She said in her notes that these are her favorite quilting things.

All the helpers were wearing decorative tabards.

Here’s a detail of the quilt above.

The name of this is Kaleidoscope, but Dawn Guthrie-Clark and quilted by Debbie Blair. (Hey! I have a quilt named Kaleidoscope!)

I thought these ladies looked great in their coordinating quilted jackets and they agreed to let me photograph them.

This is a detail from one of the beginner quilts that was displayed in this show, and they are all basically the same with different details. I couldn’t stop smiling as I looked at these quilts, for these young quilters were working hard to master the craft that I love so well.

Some have thought that my choices of the Most Ugly Quilt at Road to California were a dagger to the heart of beginners, and some took me to task believing that we should never say anything bad about another creation. (I agree, up to a point.) But beginning quilts should be in this type of show: a guild show, which displays a wide range of skills and talents.

Beginner quilts do not really belong in a national juried show, unless they are working at a very high skill level, which my Most Ugly Quilts (MUQ) were not. And all of these beginner quilts shown here are heads and shoulders above some of the MUQuilts, as they are authentic. And charming. And well made with a central, balanced design.

And they make you smile, not cringe, especially when one young quilter noted that making a quilt is not as easy as it looks, and that “it was my first time using a sewing machine.”

Mary Myers just happened to walk by her quilt, Circle of Hope, when I was looking at it.

It’s quilted by Nancy Williams.

Wouldn’t you love to win this ribbon, with it’s tiny Sunbonnet Sue bonnet? And don’t you love the little decorated clothespins with their colorful yo-yos?

Green Tea and Sweet Beans was made by Susan Bailey and quilted by Laural Arestad, from a pattern by Jen Kingwell. This, or a version of this, is definitely in my future.

A lovely classic basket quilt.

I loved the cute snowman peeking out from different places on this quilt (sorry, didn’t get the name).

Thyme to Water was made by Alice Novak and quilted by Chuck Anderson. I loved the detail on her watering cans.

And check out those ribbons–TWO of them. It was well deserved.

I just couldn’t get a good photo of this quilt, titled Pioneer Braid, but it was vibrant and colorful, as shown by the detail below. Jenelle Pickett made this quilt, and it was quilted by Nancy Williams.

There is something so appealing about a scrappy quilt.

Japanese Quilt Shop is another quilt by the duo Alice Novak (maker) and Chuck Anderson (quilter). When I put this up on Instagram, I got a lot of questions about the pattern. She credits her design source as Piece by Piece Quilts by Joe Wood. But Barbara Brackman, on her blog, has a free pattern that may work for you, if you substitute in a quilt block or two in the houses.

There was obviously a lot of tender loving detail given to this small show, as witnessed by this antique stroller filled with dollies.

There were even a few vendors, and this great chair at one of their booths.

Bonny Tucker made and quilted this quilt, titled Alice’s QD Christmas 2012. She used a coloring technique, then embroidered them to make the blocks, but it wasn’t until the Christmas 2012 Quilter’s Dozen came along that she knew what to do with them. (I assume it was a guild program.)

Jan Dolan’s “A” is for Apple was a lovely gathering of alphabet representations. The story of the quilt is complicated: it was originally started as a block-of-the-month at one shop, but the shop was sold and the designer/teacher was injured in an auto accident. The pattern was still given out to finish on their own.

Mary Myers made Flourishes, and it was quilted by Jodie Krot. The design source was Piece O’ Cake Designs. She writes that this was a tribute for Edward Myers’ life: “I took the squares with me everywhere. Many doctor & hospital visits. I started it in October, 1999 but it was not completed until April 2007, six-and-a-half years after his death.” I don’t know if Edward was a son, or a husband, but it is a wonderful memory quilt.

Dancing Wonky Wildflowers was made by Jacquie Buchanan and quilted by Jami Doto, with the design source noted as “Wonky Wildflowers” by Sandra Workman.

I’m a sucker for a well-done Hunter’s Star quilt (sorry, no name on this one either).

I’ll close with two appliqué quilts. The quilts I’ve shown are only a sample of this show, so come on over next year! The quilt above, titled Critters, is by Billie Kercmar, quilted by Karen Gehring (from Woodland Creatures by Rosemary Makhan).