QBTS 2016 Show

Our Wilmington quilt club did something a little different this year in terms of a quilt show.  We participated in a gallery showing at the Brooklyn Arts Center in downtown Wilmington.  Because of this we had size limitations and had to jury to some extent which quilts would be shown.  They were all hung from wires coming down from the ceiling so they were well above everyone's heads.  This was for two reasons which were that it allowed for more quilt and it also prevented anyone touching the quilts as they offer food and drink at this venue and this is how they make their money.  Many of the quilts were for sale as well.  There were also quite a number of vendors both underneath the quilts and in the courtyard.  You can see here a number of the quilts.  One of mine (I just noticed) is up in the upper right hand corner and is one of my sunset pieces

A view of some more of the quits.

Still more!  In the upper right hand corner is a quilt by fellow dyer Dianne Brisson who was one of the lucky ones who sold her quilt.

A view to the back row.

Two magnificent quilts in the middle surrounded by two of my less significant quilts.  I believe the top quilt is by Pat Mattison. 

The quilt that is on top of this picture evidently won prizes at Houston and it is stunning.  It took five years to make and is all hand appliqued and quilted.  You can see one of my more modest quilts below it -- the snowflakes called Winter in Rochester which was prophetic this year!

Here is a closeup of the above quilt!

All the challenge quilts were up on a wall together.  The challenge had been Circle of Friends.

We had a very short Iron Quilter demo at the show as well into which Pat talked me into participating.  The day before she told us the theme and we were allowed to bring in any fabric we wanted.  The theme was "rain".  We only had an hour and a half to complete a small quilt.  This was the winner (voted on my the audience) by Ann Hope Marvin even though she didn't have it quilted! There were only three of us particpating as there wasn't much room on the stage nor time to be truly creative!  

This was Pat's piece showing the spring gardens and rain.  Lots of bling!

Here is my piece which was obviously a rainbow at the beach.  I thought at the time that everyone would do a rainbow and was surprised that only I did.  One of the parameters we worked under was that we had to incorporate a piece of fabric from each of the other two quilters -- the two fabrics I got were the turtle fabric and the green in the rainbow.  The background is all pieced and the rainbow is fused on and quilted.  It is about 12 inches by 18 inches.  The turtle was my daughter's idea and I really liked it!  There was one woman who watched me almost the whole time I was working and said she had learned so much which was rewarding!

We have already been invited back to this venue for next year!!  It was estimated that we had close to 1000 visitors, many who hadn't been to a quilt show before.

Iron Quilter

I am just beginning to recover from our quilt show last week!! My husband and I spent three hours photographing every quilt in the show.  The quilts were just spectacular.  My old whip lash injury has been bothering me all week, limiting my computer time.

Besides photographing all the quilts, I also participated in our Iron Quilter competition and a fashion show.  I decided to participate at the last minute as they didn't have enough people who were willing to do this.  It is a little scary as you don't get a theme until 10 in the morning) and then you have four hours to complete a quilt at least 18 x 18 inches, quilted and bound!!


The theme was the Lighter Side of the Universe (joy, happiness, humor).  I quickly grabbed up all the brightly colored pieces of fabric figuring I would think of something to do but those were happy colors.  We are allowed three pieces of fabric from home and any embellishments we want.  I always bring a white piece, a black piece and some neutral color.  This year I traded my usual black for a piece of marbled black fabric that already had Wonder Under on it, a part of which I had used on another quilt.  By the time I got back to my table, I had decided on fireworks using that fabric as the background.  I wasn't sure if I could carry it off as some people thought I was doing crabs!  

The surprise was that I got the Viewer's Choice Award (from our SRO audience) as well as the Judged Second Place.  I was thrilled and when I got home even happier when I went through my prize bag!!  Lots of gift certificates, scissors, batting, fabric!

Here I am working away in my very orderly fashion!!  This picture was taken unbeknownst to me!!

This is Ann Hawkins' piece with a cheerful moon.

This piece by Debi Duvall signifies her happy place at the beach at sunset sitting in a comfy chair.

This piece was done by Frances Dack.



Janet Root did this Wood Ducks piece as several have made their presence known in her yard lately which made her very happy!  (Would make me overjoyed!!)

This piece was done by Julie Grant-Smith and signifies her happy place.

 Mary Wieser did this cheerful  piece and it was LARGE.

Mary is working away on her piece here.

This piece was done by Sarah Terry and won first place in the judged part of the competition.

This piece was done by Liz Scott and was one of my favorites!

Sunday was the Fashion Show which is about 50 minutes long.  I had four garments in the show.  For those of you who have seen my blog, you probably have seen all four at one time or another -- the all silk jacket made this winter, the all hand dyed purple jacket, my red and black Las Vegas jacket and the mostly aqua jacket.  It is on Youtube now and you can view it by selecting GVQC Fashion Show.  It is a pretty well done video and does show all the garments.

Project Iron Quilter -- Genesee Valley Quilt Club 2013 Show

 Well, I will just start with the piece that I completed titled Disappearing Leaves. It was completed in our  Iron Quilter competition which is kind of a combination of Project Runway and Iron Chef.  We had three and one half hours to complete a quilt (including binding).  It had to be a minimum of 18 inches by 18 inches.  We were given a theme at the beginning and were then set loose on a big table full of other quilters discards (and this fabric was relinquished for a good reason I might add).  I was last to the table as I am a bit gimpy so that didn't help my cause!  We were allowed to bring three pieces of fabric from our own stashes and allowed a shoe box of embellishments and any tools, interfacing etc. that we wanted.  I only used one of my fabrics -- the rest came from the table and included silks and polyesters.

My approach (and I had to have my arm twisted to be in this competition as speed under pressure is not my preferred work style) was to think about what techniques I would use ahead of time as I wanted to use a technique I liked and was comfortable with.  So I came in thinking curves and fusible applique.  The theme was "Disappearing Act".  Like myself, I understand all the participants immedately quieted and developed a "deer in headlights" stare.  As I wasn't sure what I was going to do, I took Priscilla Kibbee's approach and just started making fabric (in many cases I had to first sew same fabric scraps together to make a strip) -- 24 inch long strips of curved pieces that I just free hand rotary cut.  (Technique:  Overlap two pieces of fabric and then make a long curving cut through both.  I then mark the two pieces, pin and sew together).  I constructed a 24 inch wide x 24 inch "fabric".  While constructing this, I thought I would cut out an image of leaves and fuse them down randomly over the whole piece and then cut apart somehow.  My goal was to have the piecing, cutting out of leaves of different fabrics and sizes and fusing down done by lunch.  I succeeded in that.   I fused random leaves trying to place them so there was a value contrast with the background.  The only fabric I used from my stash was the reddish batik you see in the background.  Coincidentally, I noticed later that it had leaves on it!

After lunch (we had to take a half hour break halfway through), I decided that I would stitch on the leaves as well so did a straight stitch around each applique.  I then thought I could free hand the embroidery.  My machine didn't like doing freehand on such a thin piece so that idea went by the wayside.  Then I decided I would just make some straight line cuts down this finished piece.  At first I was going to make them fairly equally apart but I wanted to make sure I got a good cut through the leaves so went with random widths.  I then put them back up on my design wall, turned some upside down and tried to come up with an arrangement I liked.  Then I sewed up the seams and pressed.  I got batting and some background fabric, used straight pins to tack them together and straight line quilted down the straight lines.  I never changed the thread through all of this, using a fairly neutral light beige.  After this quilting, I switched to free motion and again tacked down the leaves around the raw edge and then free hand drew in veins on all the now cut up leaves.  I went back to the table after this was done in search of fabric for binding, made the binding and cut it wider than I usually do so that I could machine stitch it down.  (Technique:  attach doubled binding like usual on the front, then pull around to the back (where I usually hand tack it down).  I made sure it was wide enough however so I pinned it in place and then stitched right next to the binding edge on the front.  You couldn't see the stitching in front but  not too attractive in the back!

I didn't win any prizes (well, we all got Honorable Mention) but really liked the piece and plan to do some more with this technique in future quilts.

 This was the third place winner by the very talented art quilter Joyce Martelli.

 This piece was by Kathi Everett who won our competition last year.  There is a little door on the birdcage.  Kathi is incredibly creative.

This was the winning piece by Anne Hawkins.  A little hard to see is that the "vee" is really a zippered part.  She just happened to have a zipper in her embellishments!  She won a Bernina sewing machine!

 The rest of these are by the remaining quilters in the competition.  This is by Anne Anderson and was about the tornadoes.

This was by Carol Boyer

This was by Catherine Williams. 

This was by Deb Roach. 

This was by Elaine Ross.  She also use leaves as a theme.

This was by Frances Dack.

This was by Janet Root.

This is by Linda Bachman.

The Wicked With of the West by Liz Scott disappearing into the floor.

 Louise Tiemann did this one.

 This had a disappearing Noah's Ark by Margaret Reek.

This was by Nancy Hicks.

This was by Sue Donovan.  There is no fabric behind those holes, just stitching.

This was by Diane Enerson. 

This was a really nice one by Vickie Coykendall of a little girl playing peek-a-boo.  I am stilling missing a picture of one of the quilts however.

I should add that I came in with green and purple hair -- something I have always wanted to do with my now white hair.  Margaret Reek also had the same idea and had blue and pink hair for the competition.  Isn't it cool that the bag I found on my table just happened to match.  I also had on a green shirt which you can see and purple Crocs to complete the ensemble.

The Iron Quilter Challenge at the Greater Ithaca Quilt Show in Ithaca

Well, it was up at the crack of dawn to meet two friends to make the journey to Ithaca to see the Iron Quilter Challenge as well as to visit the quilt show (and needless to say the vendors). It was a long drive but we got there in plenty of time to see the kickoff for the challenge. The ladies were already psyching each other out trying for the crowd and emotional advantage!


The Challenge rules were announced precisely at 11 and the ladies had three hours to come up with a finished quilt any size over a foot by a foot. They would have ten minutes to grab fabric from a table that had been covered. The challenge theme was announced "to curve and not to curve". The ladies had been allowed three fabrics of their own to bring as well as embellishments of any kind and thread of any kind.

While everyone was still relaxed and happy at the beginning!

Diving for the fabrics!

Pat psyching out the competitors! She wins the prize for being able to work the fastest while still maintaining the psychological edge -- a real crowd pleaser!! Her trash talk with Priscilla, Maureen and Mary Diamond really kept the mood fun!

The audience awaiting the results!




After grueling sessions with the judges questioning every aspect of their pieces, the winner of the judged part of the competetion was announced -- Susan Clark from Ontario Province in Canada! She also won the raves of the viewers who also picked her as the best (Viewer's Choice) so she went home with two -- yes, irons! Her quilt probably best embodied the spirit of the competition -- using the fabrics on the table. She had only brought some black fabric with her as her own fabric.

If you want to see a lot more pictures including pictures of all the quilts in the competition, go to my Picasa site -

http://picasaweb.google.com/Elizabeth.Brandkamp/20091004IronQuilter#