Real Feminist Women Rally in Alaska

I try to keep my politics and my quilting separate because it makes me happier but NOTHING is making me happy with the state of our democracy right now. This YouTube video came the closest anything has for days. I could actually feel my spirits lift!

Spontaneous, Layered and Collaged

A triptych of collaged quilts by Julie Haddrick of Australia. Layered images and techniques. Some photo transfers, painted hand-dyed colored base, bleached or painted text: maybe both.

Raw-edged applique that is actually built up here to create the wonderful nest effect.

More meandering raw-edge appliqué, thread "scribbling," scattered beads, other and more seemingly random elements combine to give this quilt the spontaneous feel of a personal journal, a graffiti'd wall, a collection of seemingly casual but skillfully created detail that make a lovely, very contemporary, composition.

Not a Sunflower or a Bird

Lest I give the impression that I only favor birds and sunflowers neither appear here.

Made by Kay Haerland from Australia the textures are outstanding. The piece includes stenciling, painting, rusting and burning. She also did something she calls "interlacing on Solvy." Her materials were lace, fleece, tulle, Tyvek, batiks, Ultrasuede, wool, and more. This quilt won a blue ribbon for "Best Use of Color."

Beyond the texture this quilt is not really dimensional but the thread work is so exquisite here the mouse looks 3-d.

More Favorites

I guess they are all my favorites, or at least interesting to me, or I wouldn't take pictures of them but this quilt is so beautiful it called out to me from across a crowded busy room!

It is called Ravens Return and was created by Terry Kramzar of Pennsylvania. It is, of course, an original design, put together by machine using raw-edge appliqué, fusing and piecing. Some commercial fabrics, some hand-dyed. A particularly wonderful detail is the machine quilting in the centers of the large sunflowers. The artist has chosen to quilt small irregular circles, like seeds, using variegated thread in autumnal colors. The shading on the ravens is pretty outstanding too.

My Favorites

Sharon H. Schlotzhauter from Colorado Springs, Colorado was awarded a Judges Choice Ribbon in the Innovative Category and made one of my favorite quilts of the show.

The center motif is taken from a photo and painted. The borders appear to be pieced. The machine quilting is particularly effective. It creates the effect of another border inside the inner curved one.
I love the bird theme, the spiky border and the hand-dyed looking marbled effect of the fabric.

A Trend? Skinny Quilts

Or maybe more of a mini trend. There was a Skinny Quilts! - The Eclectic Threads Quilters exhibiton but maybe also more narrow pieces than usual. They convinced me they were something beyond table runners.
Here are some of the offical skinny quilts.I particularly loved these three and you can see why you could not begin to think of these as table runners. They wonderfully detailed quilt collages. Left, The End of Our Civilization by Henrietta Curtis. Made from fabric, plastic. paper, felt and stitching.

Middle, The Vessel by Eleanor Levie; fabric, ribbon, tulle and vintage quilt fragments.
Right, String Beans by Eleanor Levie, cotton, lace, various sheer fabrics.

Its Fall! Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza 2008

Ok. Summer's officially over now. We went to Europe, we went to the shore, I gardened...but now its time to look at quilt, to sew quilts, to long for new machines (a new Bernina, a long arm quilting machine!) and the kick off is the Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza 2008. So here it comes:

Sunflowers, always one of my very favorite subjects. This is a colorful yet soulful. Raw-edged hand-dyed applique on pieced batiks by Elaine Quehl.

Detail.