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Archive for the ‘Exhibiting’ Category

Maine Quilts, quilts I liked!

Friday, August 7th, 2009

OK…for the final installment of my Maine Quilts 2009 review, here are some quilts that I just thoroughly enjoyed.  I wish I had had enough time to snap a close-up of the labels to give proper credit to all the quilters!  Enjoy this last romp.  Next, I’ll give you some close-ups of the quilted version of Be Inspired…stay tuned!

Coastal Quilters (my local chapter) didn’t have as many quilts this year, but what we did have was wonderful…Mathea’s quilt of her husband and son was in an earlier post, and here is Louisa Enright’s glorious NY Beauty…she picked and chose from various patterns, drafted her own blocks, and designed the whole shebang…glorious!

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The Coastal Quilters also had another fun, 10×10 inch Grab Bag challenge…you had to use EVERYthing (at least a little bit) of everything in your bag.  I suggested we also add a strip to show what we got so folks could understand where each of us began and where we ended up:

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Another chapter, the Crazy Quilters, had a tea cozy challenge…think I can convince CQ to do that one year?

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then, there are quilts I just plain liked.  One of the judges liked this one, too….and (oddly?) it had no regular ribbon, but DID receive (a well-deserved, I think) Judges’ Choice ribbon:

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A Hawaiian style quilt that I loved:

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And some fun other ones:

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Maine Quilts, Art Quilts

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

There didn’t seem to be as many art quilts this year in Maine Quilts, but I enjoyed the ones that were there!   From my friend Betty’s cat quilt (in the Cat’s Meow section—each year the show has a theme…last year was schooners, the year before lobsters, etc., this year the Maine Coon Cat):

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To some of the quilts in the Art Quilts Maine section, there were some really wonderful ones.  AQM had a challenge:  black + white + one color… it was fun to see the results:

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And down the aisle from my Be Inspired Quilt was Judy Anderson’s seals:

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And Mathea Daunheimer’s quilt of her son and husband at the beach:

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And some more quilts…alas I don’t know who made the lilies, but the tree is by Mary McFarland:

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I’ll have one more post about the show in a few more days….

Maine Quilts, Blue Ribbons

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Last weekend was Maine Quilts, the annual show put on by the Pine Tree Quilt Guild (PTQG).  The judging this year was quite tough, with only five blue ribbons out of nearly 100 judged quilts.  Although I didn’t get much time to savor the show (the first day I took hubby, his first time ever going to a show with me…hoooray!…so I promised him we wouldn’t have to stay long—since it was torrential rain, it also ended up being crazy crowded, and the second day I got there late), I did have time to take pictures of the five blue ribbon quilts plus a couple of others.  (In theory, the photos should be clickable for a larger view.)

Here is the Best in Show quilt, a hand and machine appliqued quilt with a ton of quilting (Machine):

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And the other blue ribbon winners, one of which also won a judges’ choice:

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And of course, (blush, smile) mine:

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I’ll have a couple more posts about the show… some of my favorites that I just snapped while breezing through, art quilts, and Jo Diggs’ special exhibit.  More soon!

Be Inspired, Part 8–A Ribbon!

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Hallelujah, the quilt was done in time to deliver to Maine Quilts last Wednesday.  When hubby and I went up on Friday to see the show (hooray!  first time ever he has gone with me…of course, given the downpour torrential rain and the crowds inside, I may never get him to another!), I got worried as we worked our way back through the judged section:  lots of third place ribbons and honorable mentions, but FEW reds and blues…. meaning tough judging.  When I saw my quilt, though, boy did I smile:

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Yep, that’s a blue ribbon (one of five in the entire show, and the other four were traditional quilts!) AND a Judges’ Choice from Kathy Kansier (website here).  When I went to her classroom to thank her, I learned she is also this year’s Jewel Pearce Patterson scholarship winner for quilt teachers…way to go!  Plus, she’s going to have a special exhibit at the Quilt Festival in Houston of her doorways and archways quilts… I’ve been taking pictures of doors and gates and windows for 30 years! Can’t wait to see it…anyway, Thank you, Kathy!

Here’s a picture of me (and yes, I have lost 18 pounds!  about 12 more to go….) looking quite happy (thanks to Paul for taking the picture):

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And a “neighborhood” shot of the row:

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I’ll blog about the show later in the week, and also give some close-up shots of the insane quilting…..

Be Inspired, Part 3…Martin Luther King (2)

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Because Martin Luther King was the clear leader for the middle school students in terms of inspiration, I decided to do something different and feature TWO views.   This also helps with the “what to do with the legs” thing….  what attracts us as humans is the face (and perhaps the upper body/torso)….  we want to see the features and expression on the faces.   A bunch of complete body shapes on a quilt would either look like a drawing class sketchbook page or a display of Barbie dolls.  By focusing on the faces and gestures for some of the figures, I can draw the viewer in.

As well, some photos and images become iconic.  The “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963 is one of t hose images…who doesn’t instantly recognize King, his arm extended toward the mass of humanity crowding every open space on the Mall in Washington between the Lincoln Memorial, the location of the podium from which he spoke, to the Washington Monument in the distance.  So I added this view:

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Years ago, I remember seeing a quilt of a baseball player with the stands in the distance.  The quilter (this was in the early 80s when prints were very “calico” and floral) had used a few small sprigged prints, with the size of the flowers/dots decreasing as you got higher up in the stands.  Remembering that, I used three different floral prints for the crowd, with the smallest dots ones near the base of the Wash. Monument, the larger ones in the front.  Then, because it looked like a field of flowers, I took flesh-toned paints to paint dots onto the print to represent the faces.

Here is how the piece looks so far…..two people down, four to go….

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