After last night’s preview, we were ready to hit the floor and really start seeing the quilts and visiting the vendors.  Unfortunately, I didn’t feel great so only got to spend the morning at the show!!   However, even in the few hours that I was there, I found many inspirations…..

I was excited to see this quilt by Barbara Ann McCraw……It was a simple panel but she had used beads and other embellishments to turn it into a special quilt.   If you enlarge the photo, you can see that the baskets are highly beaded.   This is a great idea for a panel and I immediately remembered the African panel that I bought last year that is STILL hanging on my design wall.    NOW I have an idea about how to finish it and turn it into MY project!!   I will add it to the list of things to do!!

This pattern by Melisse Liang was super simple but so effective in how it was put together…..

This owl by Pat Baum-Bishop effectively expressed how I felt……

This “Card Trick” quilt (made by Kayoto Hata) was based on inlaid woodwork designs and was SO effective…..

It was one of my favorite quilts of the entire show!!

If you remember, some time back I wrote about a confetti class that I took that I DID NOT like.  Obviously, I didn’t have the eye that Denise Miller had with her quilts using this technique…..

In this one she used snippets in the background and silk leaves in the foreground.   It was VERY effective……

Going back to my Texas roots, this quilt by Suzan Engler caught my eye…..

Like many of the quilts in the show, the background was digitally manipulated and then heavily quilted.

And of course there has to be at one Sunflower to catch my eye.   This quilt was made by Peg Collins….

This quilt just brought a smile to my face, made by Teresa Marler and Mary Covey…..

Finally, when I first saw this quilt, I thought that it was some amazing curved piecing…..

But in looking at it I realized that it was simple straight line blocks with curved quilting….a good technique to remember!!

Unfortunately that was all for the day but I definitely made up for it on Friday!!!

More to come…….

On Wednesday my friend Linda and I caught a plane to the great state of Texas, to visit the IQF!!  The airport and plane were packed with quilters…some that we already knew and a bunch that we had never seen before, but you could TELL who they were!!!

We hit the local Tex-Mex place as soon as we arrived at our hotel and then went to the convention center to register and check things out.  The convention center has huge round windows on the second floor that look out over the show and I was SUPER excited to be able to see my quilt from there.   When the show opened we worked our way to the area so that I could get the picture that I had been looking forward to…..

Last year it was exciting to have a quilt in one of the special exhibits but it was even better to have one in the competition!!

The “Winner’s Circle” quilts were amazing as usual, especially “Old Woman with Joyous Face” by Marina Landi…….

And, Velvet Flowers by Linda Anderson…..

I enjoyed walking thru the “Tactile Architecture” exhibit, especially this quilt by Hsi –Chen Hsu…..

It had JUST the right amount of bling and crystals to bring it to life!!

There was an exhibit curated by Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson where a US quilter was matched up with an international quilter.   They exchanged emails, learned about each other and then made a small quilt to send to their partner.   This one was based on Ukraine folklore and was amazing…..

Each of the “hairs” were made from a narrow strip of fabric…..many looked like small tubes.   It was really cool!!! 

It would have been fun to be part of this exercise!!

I loved the light in this quilt and, as I wrote this blog, I realized that it was made by the same woman as the cityscape above…..

She obviously knows how to add light to her quilts!!!!

There was an “Elvis” exhibit and this one is called…..

….you guessed it….”Elvis Has Left the Building”….by Dana Hancock.

This amazing quilt (made by Karen McCarty) is mixture of fabric and photo prints….

I especially like the shadows on the ground!!

There was an exhibit featuring the thread painting of Lioudmilla Malchow and all of her pieces were so lifelike….

Finally, this quilt was made in 1845 and has 45,000 1/4 inch hexagons…..

Michael’s comment was that this woman must have been off of her meds for too long!!  I, on the other hand, would have to be ON med’s to be able to do this!!

About this time the fire alarms went off and we were all instructed to leave the building but as we got to the front door we were told that it was a false alarm and that we didn’t have to leave.   It was funny to watch everybody calmly return to their shopping as the siren continued to sound and the strobe lights continued to blink.

We made it thru three or four rows of vendors and then called it a night!!

It was a great start!!!

Now, almost three weeks later, it is time to finish up my posts about IQF.   I found the show to be amazing and encouraging and I came away with tons of ideas and thoughts about my future in quilting.   The main thought that kept coming to my mind was the need to concentrate more  on the details and to spend the time needed to finish a project strong!!

Here are a few of my favorite quilts……

This quilt by Caryl Bryer Fallert was part of the Tactile Architecture exhibit……

…..as were these two by Jill Kertula…..

I was mesmerized by the interplay of photographs and fabric…..so much movement!!!

I have seen this quilt by Olga Gonzalez-Angulo in magazines but the photos did nothing to show just how amazing it was…..

Of course this is just another photo so I guess that I am not helping you too much!!!

This piece by Jan Reed called “The End of the Drought” was very evocative…..

There were several pieces that were reminiscent of the Zentangle movement including this piece by Mikyung Jang……

Our four-legged friends were well represented as well.   I loved this fun quilt by Hiroko Miyama aptly named “You Know What?”…..

…and this quilt by Lea McComas entitled “Cruisin” just stole my heart…..

As a side note, when I showed my daughter this quilt she immediately started sending me photos of her German Shorthair Pointer with hints that she would LOVE a quilt of Riley!!

And, this little guy looked like he would crawl right off of the wall (by Tonya Littmann)….

There were some interesting uses of fabric in this piece by Soyoung Chung…..

When you moved in closer you could see the many layers of fabrics that were used to perfect the tree trunks…..

In the portrait quilt gallery, this piece by Gillian Shearer, entitled “Did you see that”?” was one of my favorites……

As far as shopping went, I enjoyed walking thru the vendors and watching their demonstrations but didn’t purchase too much.   There were some threads from Superior and some Machine Quilting Rulers that I would have had to order from Australia and a few other small bits and bobs.  But, as I often tell shop owners, what I really need is a 30-35 hour day!!!

Before I end this post, I want to give a big shout-out to my sweet husband who encouraged me to go on the trip even though it came at a rough time for him, and another shout-out to Linda, my very special friend and traveling companion!!

 

So, now I am back home and deep in the midst of Holidays, decorating, working and the other parts of life that somehow manage to steal my quilting time, but I am working hard to find time for this wonderful creative outlet…..I hope that you can do the same!!!!

 

When I started thinking about classes to take at IQF, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to do anything that would mean carrying a bunch of supplies with me.  Also, I was going to the show for inspiration and not really for new techniques. So, when I saw the Ricky Timms seminar called “Dream It, Design It, Make It”, I knew that it was for me. 

And, I was not disappointed.   He spent his three hours showing us some basic design elements and techniques and encouraging us to go forth and create….just what I needed to hear.

He first began talking about Skills and Technical Excellence.  He defined “technical excellence “ as how well you did what you INTENDED to do!!  He also commented that intuition can take you so far in the creative process and when you have exhausted it then the technical knowledge kicks in.   How many times have I seen that in my work!!!

Next he worked thru the various elements that make up a quilt, starting with LINE.  His comment here was that it was the artist’s job to control the viewer and that the use of lines was an excellent way to do that.

Then came SHAPE with him hypothesizing that shape is more powerful than color.   To demonstrate this, he told us that when we saw the next slide we were to shout out what color it was.  The only problem was that the shape of the object said BLUE but it was printed in RED.   Almost all of us immediately said “Blue” but then quickly changed our answer to “Red”.

The third element was VALUE.  I loved his comment that “color gets the credit but value does the work”.  He encouraged us to spend time in the areas of our quilt that contain contrast (and interest) and not to sweat the other areas of the quilt as no one will be looking there anyway!!!

Fourth was TEXTURE, which he called the “surface character”.   He further defined this by saying that it doesn’t have to be touchable with our hands but can be touched with our eyes.

The last two elements were SPACE (positive and negative) and FORM (has height, depth and width).

In the second hour he moved into the principles of organization which he reminded were only guidelines and NOT laws…..

Harmony  –  glues all of the parts together

Variety  –  the counterweight to Harmony

Contrast  –  change and shift size and color

Elaboration  –  Embellish, embellish, embellish!!

Balance  –  Symmetrical, asymmetrical or radial

Proportion  –  keeping things in scale, although whimsy is created when things are out of proportion.

Dominance & Emphasis  –  Make what is important…..IMPORTANT

Movement  –  takes the viewer on a journey

Economy  –  Keep it simple and go back to basics.  As Leonardo daVinci said….“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

My favorite quote of the entire workshop is that he loves the dialog between himself and his design wall……what a great way to think of it!!

He ended the workshop with an encouragement for us to look at the things that keep us creating and the things that hinder our creativity, and then he told us to go home and BE CREATIVE!!!

On that note, I met Linda again and we hit the floor again to see what we could see…..

The show was divided into a lot of smaller exhibits.  One of our favorites was by Danny Amazonas, a magnificent fiber artist from Japan.  The first quilt that we saw was this HUGE Koi pond…..

We walked around the corner and saw even more wonderful pieces…..

….and my all time favorite……

Now, technically they were not quilts as they just had a backing and no batting, but the way that he used the fabrics was astounding.  I also loved that he used only commercial fabrics and I could point to many that I owned as well.   He finished the top with what looked like a free motion zig-zag stitch done with monofilament thread.  If you google his name there are several videos showing his work in progress.

The other exhibit that I loved was the Cherrywood Fabric “Van Gogh” challenge.   The rules were as follows…..

Most of the quilt top had to use the official VAN GOGH blues and black Cherrywood fabrics. Accent colors of Cherrywood were allowed. The  entire quilt top and binding had to be made from Cherrywood Fabric and was to be 20 inches square.  Any technique or fabric manipulation was acceptable as long as it maintained the color and character of a textile quilt.  

The results were magnificent…..

….and of course I was drawn to the sunflower…..

I excitedly looked to see what the next challenge is and found a bundle of royal purple fabrics……

….but the theme is “Prince”.  Not being much of a Prince fan I am not sure that I will participate but I will definitely keep an eye out for future challenges!  My friend Deb has encouraged me to go ahead and buy the fabric just in case inspiration strikes!!!

I spent much of my time studying the exquisite machine quilting that was shown.  The texture that can be achieved is so exciting…..

This quilt by Kristin Vierra called “Star of India” was magnificent…..

….as was “Wickedly Green” by Debora Poole…..

I left this exhibit with LOTS of ideas for making a whole cloth quilt!!!

One final comment for the day….. I spent quite a bit of time with Cynthia England, author of the book “Picture Piecing”…..

I have been enamored with her quilts for many years but never thought that I would be able to pull off the technique.  But, she very patiently demonstrated her technique and answered a myriad of questions which increased my excitement about trying it sometime.   She posed in front of my absolute favorite of her quilts……

 

I left her booth with a new found respect for her!!!

Linda had a class that afternoon so we met up again at 5:00 and headed out to find someplace to eat.   The only problem was that a parade to honor the World Series Champion Houston Astros had just ended and approximately 1 MILLION Houstonians were downtown as well so finding someplace with a wait time of less than 3 hours was a bit of a challenge.  We finally stopped at a McAlister’s Deli and spent a fun evening sitting outside and watching the city of Houston walk past!!

One day left……

After doing a quick view of the quilts on the opening night, I woke up early on Thursday morning ready to start getting serious about the show.   I began the morning with my first class….the Machine Quilting Forum.  I had no idea exactly what this would be like but ended up enjoying three very informative hours. 

The session began with each of six women giving a short talk, telling us how they came to be a quilter and what had influenced their art over the years.  We then split into groups and spent 20 minutes with each quilter and learned some amazing things…..

My first session was with Cathy Wiggins who specializes in quilting on LEATHER and boy did she get my attention quickly…..

Being a cowgirl at heart, her work made my head spin!!  And, the thought of collaborating with Michael in some of his leather work just seemed too good to be true.  She gave us some basic information and told us that she has a book coming out in March….  “Quilting Leather on Any Machine”.  And yes, she does all of this work on a regular home sewing machine!!  She said that the only requirement was that you use a “leather needle” which actually cuts a hole in the leather rather than just pushing it thru like a fabric needle does.  I loved the textures that she could get from the leather…..

And I have to admit that I have already bought some needles and given it a try with some of Michael’s leftover leather scraps.  I am thinking that his leather is a bit too thick for the job but I have pre-ordered her book and cant wait to have a full-fledged try with it in the Spring.  The most daunting thing about the process is that, because the needle actually cuts a hole into the leather, you cant make a mistake because it will show…..YIKES!!

Cathy had one quilt in the show itself, a piece called “Another Day”……

All too soon the bell sounded and it was time to move on to Patt Blair who talked about ways to make “knife-edge” facings to your art quilts, and just look at her magnificent quilts….. 

Her biggest trick is that she does some stay-stitching at various points of the process and also trims extremely close to the edge of the piece.   Her technique is described in detail on her blog at http://pattsart.blogspot.com/2016/04/facing-art-quilt.html  I will definitely remember it the next time I am finishing up a quilt!!

The next session was with Nancy Goldsworthy who talked about “The Art of the Pantograph”.  It was obviously designed more for long-arm quilters although she did talk about using the pantograph on a home machine by piercing it and using a pouncer to chalk in a design.  My favorite thing with her was her encouragement to stop and play and to break the rules!!!  Sometimes we need to hear those things!!!

Next was Jenny Lyon who talked about “Finessing your Free Motion Quilting – Small Changes = Big Results”.  And, based on the pieces that she had hanging behind her, she knows what she is talking about…..

Her basic message was to pay attention to some of the routine choices that you make when working on a quilt and then see how much difference they make.  There were two things that she said that stuck with me.  The first was what batting to use.  I have to admit that I tend to use the easiest one around, which in my case is a fusible from Hobbes.  I know that I really should try different ones, but often it just seems easier to use what I am used to.   Maybe I can branch out one of these days!!!   The other thing that she talked about was basting and this is really the reason that I love the fusible so much.    You dont have ANY pins to dodge when you are quilting  AND you dont have to use a messy spray.   However, her basting method might just work.   She pin bastes on a grid and then uses water soluble thread (top and bobbin) to stitch between the pins.  Once that is done she removes the pins and is able to work on the basted piece with worrying about pins.  And, the water soluble thread easily washes out…..hmmmm…something to think about!!

The 5th session was with RaNae Merrill who has just come out with a book called “Free Motion Mastery”.  Her teaching approach focuses on 6 basic shapes (straight line, C-Curve, Circle, Teardrop, S-Curve and spiral), with the assumption that once you have mastered those, you can easily quilt almost any design around.  The one tip that I really liked from her was to practice the design you are about to quilt by drawing in the air or on a table, but holding both hands together just like you would at the machine.

She suggests holding a small acrylic ruler in your hands or even just a piece of clear acetate with a dot drawn on it.   I can really see how this would build muscle memory and hopefully make it easier to quilt some of the designs.

My last session of the morning was with Catherine Redford, a spunky English lady who does some amazing modern quilts and does almost entirely straight line quilting…..

She had a couple of interesting tips.   The first was to run a stiletto down a seam before stitching in the ditch.  She said that it helped to open the seam and make it easier to keep the stitching in the right place.   Now, the other tip was one that I shouldn’t have to be TOLD but….. have you ever used masking tape to mark straight lines?  I have tried it and always got frustrated because I would accidently stray onto the tape and then I had a big mess to deal with.   She reminded us that we didn’t have to sew RIGHT next to the tape but could use it as a guide and stitch a 1/4 inch away from the edge…..DUH!!!

After I got out of class I met up with Linda and we decided to hit a few rows of vendors!!  My first purchase was this cute batik piece…..

I am not sure exactly why it called to me, but I cant wait to layer it up and have some fun with quilting it!!!

After a while, we ended back at the quilt show end of the auditorium.  Here are a few of my favorites……

The piecing was amazing in “Red and White Stars”, made by a group of women from the Austin area…..

The most amazing thing about the quilt is the fact that it was made by a GROUP of women….how did they ever get such complicated blocks to fit together so well!!!

There was a wonderful exhibit called “Made in New Mexico” and this quilt kept calling me back over for another look……

It was titled “Old Blue” by Michelle Jackson and was made with fusible applique.  On one of my passes by the quilt I finally noticed that it had a tulle layer over the applique…..

This is a technique that I have been wanting to try so looked at this quilt with even more appreciation!!

We spoke to the maker of this quilt, Karlyn Lohrenz, for a long time.  It was part of an exhibit featuring just her work and she seemed completely overwhelmed that her work was in such prominence at the show. 

Ok….enough for now…..more to come!!!!