Traditional and Not

Traditional block designs used in new ways. Is it a Carolina Lily living inside of a tumbling block patch? The lily blocks rise up like tall flowers in a garden border. Floating above them is an open, embroidered image of lilies.

This quilt is also using light effects and transparency. The artist choose to start with darker fabrics in the lower right corner moving the light lily "stems" across and up the quilt until they reach the open center where the blue sky takes over the composition. She uses the backs of her fabrics several times to enhance the feeling of light beaming out from amongst the flowers.

African Spikes, Curves and Bars

This quilt has great interesting elements:

• African fabric, mixed with what are probably non-African-produced animal prints,checks and possibly some patterned batiks


• A simple, basic arrangement of gently curved pieces lined up in regular, horizontal bars.


• The bars are interrupted a few dramatic times with curved pieces put together with spikey, Orange Peel-type piecing


• The surface is embellished with varigated ribbon yarn and what looks like some cord.
  
• Metallic Quilting that loosely echos the shape of the vertical piecing.

Otago Gold: Chinese Coins

Another World Quilt Competition. The circles have been appliqued onto diagonally pieced squares. The diagonals cleverly form strips of color that shoot around the quilt. They are strong lines but the circles and the neat center rectangle win the design tug-of-war here. Some of the circles look like they may have had foil applied to them? Foiling quilting may be a just-now-arriving trend. I always love quilts with a circle theme. This one is embellished with Chinese coins.

World Quilt Competition First Prize Winner (I think)

What an amazing quilt. I didn't get a good enough photo of the information or the ribbon to know for sure but I believe this was a first prize winner in the World Quilt Competition!
Since I can't read that I can't read the technique information either. I do know that the black line detail on the Grecian images is stitching. The double gold rings around the medallians are a gold lame fabric and I would say images are appliqued with very narrow machine satin stitch. It is machine quilted.

More Quilts, More Quilts!

	A folded bow tie quilt made from Asian prints. The pattern came from a book by Rebecca Wat The bow tie is one my favorite traditional patterns. Again, this quilt is showing the dimensional element that is gaining momentum.
	The black blocks are not flat filler-type blocks. They are folded like the printed ones
	World Quilt Competition Honoarable Mention winner. Judith Briant, New Zealand

#1003

The quilt maker did not use any paint to create the face in this portrait quilt. A particularly interesting element here is her use of the back of the fabric to create the shading in the shirt. Nor did she use a pair of jeans to create the denim look in the quilt either. The jeans are appliqued shades of blue. Again, an amazing piece, hanging next to the Guatemalan ladies, difficult to get near bacause everyone wanted a closer look!

Blue Ladies of Guatemala

More trends: dimensional elements and ethnic fabrics In this case textiles that the women are holding and many of their headdresses are folded and/or stuffed. The handwoven Guatemalan fabrics gorgeous and once again, an ingenuous use of fabric I've always admired but never knew what I would do with.

This quilt was stunning and surrounded by people as I was trying to take this picture. The photo doesn't really do it's color or texture justice.

Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza 2007 is Here

Ok, here we go! It was a great show. Maybe part of the reason the show moved to the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg was so that it could grow bigger? I don't know, but it was too big this year for me to get through in one day. The drive is longer but I must go! First my images of the prize winners.

This was a huge quilt with an irregular shape. Though I have no hard and fast evidence for it I believe that non-square/rectangular shaped quilts are becoming more and more popular. I haven't seen many irregular shapes win prizes.

The quilt combines painted folk images and paper pieced blocks. There are, as the artist points out in her statement, lions quilted in the upper corners. There are also african fabrics, or prints combined to evoke natively produced african prints. The use of ethnic prints, especially ones other than Japanese, is another trend I see more and more of and I do love it. I have quite a collection and these great examples provide ideas.