2015 GVQC Quilt Show -- A Universe of Quilts Part 1

This blog entry will only contain SOME of the incredible appliqued quilts that were in the show.  I don't think there is a show in the country that would have as many hand appliqued and hand quilted quilts (athough not all pictured are hand quilted).  This was one of the favorites of everyone in the hand appliqued and quilted area.  It is Dreamtime by Antonia Hering and shows Australian aboriginal images.  Each of those thousands of dots is hand appliqued.

This is a closeup where  you can see the hand quilting as well.  WOW and it didn't even get first place!!

This is Murderskill Crossing by Janet Atkins and was another crowd favorite as well as a prize winner.

This and the following quilt are by Shirley Frew,  one of our very talented quilters.  This is called A Baltimore Christmas.

This one is called Wind in the Whiskers.

This is called A Halloween Baltimore Album by Linda Traynor.  I believe it was one of the prize winners as well.  All the winners can be seen on the GVQC Quiltfest website.

This and the two subsequent quilts were done by Irene Bow.  This one is called Baltimore Album.

This one is called Baltimore Garden.

This one is called Vintage Valentine.

This one is done by Toni Foster and is called Love at First Sight.  Toni has been recognized nationally for her fabulous quilts and is known for her hand quilting which she has taught all over the Rochester area.  Her workmanship and artistry has been well recognized.  I don't think she has ever done a quilt that hasn't overwhelmed me -- she adds a special something to even the most traditional of quilts.

This is Tomorrow's Treasures by Lorraine Enge.

This one is called Webster Album - I'm Not From Baltimore by Sandra Buckman.  You can tell the relative size of these quilts by looking at the tags on them whicchc are about 4 x 6 inches.  I have also tried to size the pictures with a little thought to that as well although the detail in some of them is so incredible, I blow them up as much as I can!!.

This one is called Uncommon Friend by Mary Christopher and combines piecing and appliqueing and I think is totally stunning!!!  Not only do I love the design but I love the colors as well.  Awesome quilt!!

This one is called Japanese by Pat Soule.

 The next four quilts were done by Chris Wickert who has taken the applique tradition of this quilt club to a whole new level, winning Best of Show at the Vermont Quilt Show two years in a row.  We had a special exhibit of prize winning quilts at the show and many of Chris's were included in those.  The above one is called My Version of a Persian and is all done in silk.

 This one is called Sampling the Silk Road.  Besides working in silk a lot, Chris hand quilts her quilts -- I don't think she sleeps....

This one is called Garlands and Hearts of Flowers and was in the judged part of the show.

This one is called Bijou Soie and was also in the special exhibit.  Besides the Vermont Quilt Festival, her quilts have been recognized in many other national quilt shows as well.

Another member of our club known nationally is Ruth Ohol who is famous for her fabulous machine quilting.  The above quilt called Many Waterlilies is an example of that as well as her wonderful applique (I don't know whether it is machine or hand applique though).  She had many quilts in our special exhibit of prize winning quilts.

I know there are beautiful applique quilts that I haven't included here but these were some of my favorites!!

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.

More Mandalas -- It's True -- I Can't Stop!!

Well, here are three more yards worth altogether of the ice dyed mandalas in the smaller format (22 inches x 22 inches).  I tried two different techniques here to see if one was better than the other and the verdict is -- yes, one is better than the other.  With 8 pieces, I did my usual process of soaking them in the soda ash water and then laying then down on the racks slightly scrunched.  For 4 of the pieces, I allowed them to dry after soaking in the soda ash solution.  Then I placed them on the rack.  They were harder to scrunch dry as well.  The dry ones (my experiment) had much more of a distinct variation in the amount of dye the various layers took.  In addition, they had some rather strange patterning.  So I have concluded I won't try that again!!  8 of those 9 pieces above used my prior technique of putting the ice on the wet pieces.

These are three of the four pieces that used dry fabric rather than the wet fabric.  They are okay,  They can easily be cut up and rearranged so that the bits are interspersed which I think will be more pleasing to the eye!

A blowup of one of favorite ones using the wet technique.

This is a closeup of one of the dry dyed pieces.

I have also started the quilting on the last top I did.  I am doing a lot of quilting and hopefully you can see some of it.  There are so many solids, that it needs to be quilted heavily and evenly all over.

Just another view.  I am doing flowers in the white part and leaves in the green "leaves".  The large green areas have feathers coming out from the center.  I still have to decide what to do in the larger white areas but it will be some sort of flowers but may have to do a little marking there!  I am relatively pleased at how it is looking.  I am using a cotton/bamboo batt which I prewashed.  It held together really well but the quilt is really heavy!  Hopefully I won't destroy my shoulders doing the quilting.  I am trying to pace myself!

I have had a bad ankle for awhile which has limited my walking quite a bit.  Saw an orthopedic surgeon last week who said I had a lot of arthritis in my foot caused by some sort of traumatic injury -- have no idea at all what that could have been!!  Anyway, MRI tomorrow.  In the meantime, have a new ankle brace which is super comfortable and does help with my walking a bit.  Weather seems to be the biggest factor in how my ankle feels though!

A big week coming up with the Genesee Valley Quilt show coming this weekend.  I will be taking photos of the 600 plus quilts on Thursday, participating in an Iron Quilter Challenge on Saturday and modelling four of my garments in a fashion show on Sunday.  Whew, makes me tired just to think about it.  After I take the pictures, will have to edit them and apply names which takes a long time but I will have lots of blog pictures!!

Yearly Visit to Sterling Nature Center

I discovered this bird sanctuary a couple of years ago thanks to my neighbor who saw it written up in the local paper and went for a visit.  It is on Lake Ontario east of Rochester and has several ponds and a number of well-marked walking trails by the ponds and through the woods.  The first pond you come to is out in the sun and I have seen several different kinds of ducks in the past.  This year, there was a mama Canada Goose with her brood of 8 or 9 goslings on the far side of the pond.

While I was watching the geese, this critter swam by.  It looked like a beaver to me but wasn't sure until I got home and looked closely at the picture and could see the long tail.  First time I have seen a beaver in the wild.  Not sure what he was building as this pond is already fairly deep with no running water that I could see.  I talked to some people later who showed me another of the ponds that the beavers had constructed a dam on this past winter!  Will be interesting how the landscape changes next year.

There was also this platform filled with sunning turtles although I don't know what variety there is up here.  

I also spotted this dragonfly who managed to stay still long enough for me to snap his picture.  It is an immature Blue Corporal -- one that I hadn't seen before.  As adults, they are totally blue on the back end.  He was a chunky fellow.

Next I wondered along the path to head to the Great Blue Heron rookery which is an area filled with dead trees.  I suspect the aforementioned beavers might have been blamed for this pond years ago!  If you look closely, you can see the babies down in the nest.  I went earlier this year than I had previously (because the weather was perfect) and the young herons were far from fledged and not as active as other years.  There are 25 nests this year.  This is the only time of  year you will see Blue Herons anywhere near each other as they are a very solitary bird.

You can see several nests here with young in them.

I headed to the next pond, part of which had been dammed up by the beavers.  There was a pair of Blue-winged Teals dabbling in the shallow part of the pond.  This is the male and really the closest I have ever gotten to this species.  You can just barely see the blue on his wing that gives him his name.

Just another shot of the male Teal.  They were dabbling almost constantly and most of my shots have their heads buried in the water!

This is the female Blue-winged Teal.

A couple I met at the pond told me they had seen Eastern Phoebes over the beaver pond snatching the flies but reported later that they had moved on (I caught up with them on the path).  I looked over the pond and did spot one sitting on the branch.  This must be my year for Phoebes!

A chipmunk decided to trek across one of the branches crossing the water.

There were as usual lots of Tree Swallows catching flies as well!  This one sat for a moment to have his picture taken!

My Backyard Visitor

This lovely doe decided to visit our backyard the other day.  At first she was in the front yard and dashed over to the neighbors.  A little while later she was again in our backyard nibbling on the undergrowth (and not my husband's hibiscus!).  When I went out to take her picture, she just stared at me and didn't move -- the old "deer in headlights" phenomenon!  Look at those eyelashes!

She peeked around the tree at me making sure I wasn't getting any closer.  

I kept edging over until I could get an unobstructed view.  Unlike many of the neighborhoods around here, we don't really  have a deer problem -- just an occasional visitor.  This lady did come back yet again with her fawn in tow.  I figured she had recently given birth from looking at the pics closeup.  Our next door neighbor saw her nursing later that evening.  She hasn't been back since but she sure looks nice and healthy!