Posts tagged ‘John Flynn’
AQS Lancaster, Part II: The Quilts!
Get ready to gaze upon the pretty…
"Wedding Rings for Mavis and C.J." by Fran Kordek
This was truly an international show. The quilts came from all over the United States, plus Canada, the U.K., Australia, Germany, and South Korea, and the quality threshold was extremely high. The winners list is practically a who’s who of quilting greatness, and has professional pictures of all the ribboned quilts.
The Best of Show ribbon went to Marilyn Badger, who longarm quilted the 2008 Quilter’s Heritage Celebration and 2009 Quilt Odyssey Best of Show quilt, “Awesome Blossoms.” This year’s quilt, “Filigree,” is an exquisitely pieced Judy Niemeyer design, but what takes it to an entirely different plane is the quilting. Marilyn is from the same town as Superior Threads, and she’s certainly supporting that local business: the quilt contains over 15,000 yards of thread, including all that gold metallic quilting:
Quilting detail, "Filigree" by Marilyn Badger
While my personal preference is not to see quite so much dense overall quilting on a quilt, I have to say this is done absolutely masterfully. Plus, the gold metallic thread makes the quilting simultaneously pop yet not compete with the fabric choices and precision piecing. I have used very little metallic thread in my own quilting, so I will have to keep this in mind.
There were only five categories in this show: Bed quilt – pieced, bed quilt – appliqued, wall quilt, wall quilt – pictorial, and “Grand Geometrics – The Amish Way,” which I think was kind of an awkward nod to the fact that we were in Lancaster. The small number of categories meant that group quilts and solo quilts were judged together, and that wall quilts were judged together regardless of technique. There were no miniatures, which was disappointing; I have no intention of ever, ever making a miniature quilt, but I always enjoy looking at them and saying, “yeah, I’m never going to do that.”
Detail, "Ships at Sea" by Thomas Eugene Smith
There were twice as many applique bed quilts as there were pieced bed quilts (note to self: make a pieced bed quilt before next year’s show) and the level of the applique quilts was glorious to behold. It was immediately obvious that several of the entries were magnum opus quilts, the kind of life’s work projects that represent years of loving effort. ”Ships at Sea” by Thomas Eugene Smith impressed me with its masterful execution of unusual subject matter (and by a man! I could hear viewers exclaiming — I suppose it is still unusual, at least in traditional quilts,) and “A World of Santas” by Susan J. Dicks displayed more lovely gold metallic quilting (by Jamie Wallen) to complement its charming appliqued Santas.
Detail, "A World of Santas" by Susan J. Dicks
The pieced bed quilts as a group were not as uniformly outstanding as the appliqued ones, but there were certainly standouts. One of my criticisms of the display in the convention center was that the lighting was poor over some of the bed quilts, and combined with the way the displays were roped off, some details were very difficult to see. Both the ribbon winners for Best Longarm Workmanship and Best Machine Workmanship were in this area, and I have no idea what the judges saw because I literally couldn’t see the quilting. I can only imagine it was pretty darned impressive, because “The Sampler” by Barbara Persing, which I had seen and marveled over at the 2009 Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, didn’t win any ribbons. Then again, it was hanging on the dark side of the moon in the convention center, too.
Detail, "The Sampler" by Barbara Persing (at PNQE 2009)
My other big complaint about the quilt display: there were two special exhibits owned by the National Quilt Museum that were “no photography.” That fact alone is not my complaint; my problem with it was that there was inadequate signage to indicate this. As a veteran white-glover, I will tell you that for the most part, quilt show goers are a law-abiding lot (the exceptions deserve their own post someday.) If people know the rules, they are happy to follow them. Over at Liberty Place, the Pilgrim/Roy Challenge had two tiny signs indicating “no photography” — and they were placed several quilts in from the entrances! The first quilt was an absolute knockout by John Flynn, very photogenic, and the attendee would encounter it before she would encounter a sign indicating she wasn’t permitted to photograph it! I felt terrible having to inform people, as part of my white glove hostessing duties, that they couldn’t take pictures there, because they were uniformly embarrassed and apologetic, when they had no reason to know they’d done anything wrong.
The situation was a slight bit clearer over in the convention center with the Burgoyne Surrounded exhibit; there were a few more signs, but they were still small and not at all eye-catching, at least not when compared with a big shiny quilt. On Saturday, I encountered a hostess who had discovered her secret purpose in life by unleashing her inner Dirty Harry on those who would dare to photograph a quilt. Not only did she shout at several hapless picture-takers, at one point she barrelled over to a group of us who were innocently looking at a quilt without any electronics in our hands, calling “Stop! No pictures! No pictures allowed!!” and seemed on the verge of enacting a body cavity search when she couldn’t find the source of what she’d perceived as a camera flash. I hope she got back safely to her job at the TSA. But most people, including AQS staff, seemed far more polite and reasonable, and hopefully next year’s signage will be less ambiguously placed.
"The Flight of the Phoenix" by Lee Jung Sun
But back to the quilts! There were several lovely wall quilts, including some by usual suspects like David Taylor, Sue Reno and Esterita Austin. Standouts for me included Lee Jung Sun’s “The Flight of the Phoenix” and the edge finish on blue ribbon winner “Alpha Block Celebration” by Janet Stone. There were twice as many wall quilts as bed quilts in the competition, due I’m sure in equal parts to American quilting habits (we finish more quilts if they’re smaller) and ease of display (we can hang more quilts if they’re smaller.)
Detail, "Alpha Block Celebration" by Janet Stone
Surrounding all these beautiful quilts were — astonishingly enough — vendors! What a pleasant surprise! In my next post, I’ll discuss how some of them managed to twist my arm into exchanging money for pretty pretty things. Against my will, against my reason, and even against my character, I assure you.
And Introducing the WIPs! Part I: Ruby Wedding
A handful of years ago, as I realized that my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary was fast approaching (July 2009) I started thinking about making them a quilt to commemorate the occasion. Of course, the first design I thought of was Double Wedding Ring. It’s topical, it’s traditional, it’s impressive as hell. No, I then thought, that’s crazy. That’s way too ambitious. It’ll never get finished. Do something basic and pretty, with stars or something. At least then you’ll get it finished and they’ll get to go home with a quilt on their actual 40th wedding anniversary.
I believe you can see where this is going:
Biting off, successful! Chewing, still in progress.
My downfall began with my discovery of John Flynn’s method for Double Wedding Ring. Analytical, nerdy, math-heavy approaches to quilting almost always appeal to me, so John Flynn is naturally one of my favorite quilters; I really have to muster up to take a class from him one of these days. I had also taken the plunge into curved piecing with my eternal WIP, Taupe Winding Ways (pictured in the blog header), so I thought this could potentially work.
Then my friend Kathy gave me an issue of Quilts Japan featuring Double Wedding Ring, and I saw a beautiful appliqued quilt that is the major design concept source for this one:
From Quilts Japan May 2007; quilter's name untranslatable (by me)
I decided I wanted to use red for the rings, since the 40th anniversary is traditionally styled the Ruby anniversary. However, while red is my dad’s favorite color, my mom likes blue, and I didn’t want to end up with the Yankee Doodle quilt as their gift. Then, at Seminole Sampler in Catonsville, MD, I found the fabric that inspired the color story for the entire quilt.
It really tied the whole quilt together, Dude.
I think this is quite possibly the only time in my life I have ever purchased nine yards of fabric at full price and done so with a song in my heart. If I hadn’t gotten it for the back, to my way of thinking, the whole quilt would have been spoiled. All the other decisions regarding fabric and color placement and applique design just fell into place after that.
I’ll have you know, I started this quilt more than a year in advance of the anniversary. I shopped for fabric on a trip to Massachusetts in February 2008, then made a four-ring wall hanging as a birthday present for my friend Rhonda in May 2008 to make sure I really could execute the design. I spent the entire weekend of MAQ in July 2008 sewing and subcutting and resewing my strip sets. I had as much of the piecing accomplished as I could and still keep the applique sections portable by November 2008. At that rate, I would have been finished.
Rhonda's Birthday Quilt, 2008: 42" x 42"
But then I made a whole bunch of Hunter’s Star tablerunners as Christmas presents. And then I assembled, quilted, and bound a queen-size Log Cabin quilt as a charity fundraiser. And then — I started appliqueing. I appliqued the daylights out of that thing:
1) the entire weekend of my EGA chapter retreat in February 2009;
2) the entire week of my recuperation from laparascopic abdominal surgery at the beginning of April 2009;
3) the entire weekend of my quilt guild retreat at the end of April 2009
4) while at the Ricky Tims Super Seminar in May 2009
and on and on, at home and at the office, in waiting rooms and during guild meetings, everywhere and anywhere I could get away with it. But there was an awful lot of applique to be done. The longer it dragged on, the more little deals I made with myself: OK, maybe it won’t get finished, but it’ll be quilted. OK, it won’t be quilted, but the top will be finished. Suffice to say, on my parents’ anniversary, July 19, 2009, they were presented with a top with three of its four borders sewn in place and some bedraggled Celtic bias tubes hanging off the bottom. They were surprised and happy; I was more than a little ashamed of myself.
Artfully photographed to hide the missing border.
I really enjoyed appliqueing the Celtic knotwork. I have learned a lot from this piece, not least of which is that what I hate about hand applique isn’t that it’s handwork; I’m just not particularly fond of needleturn at this time in my life. The bias tubes eliminated the raw edges, making the process not only pleasant but actually fun. I will definitely include hand-appliqued bias tubing in future projects — just perhaps not quite so much mileage.
I finished sewing the bottom border on this past Monday, more than six months after I asked for it back to finish it. And I still have some applique to do to resolve the side Celtic braids into the corner squares. Obviously, I already have the backing fabric, and I think I know how I want to quilt it, but wow am I dreading the binding! Kyoto Ink took me literal days to bind, and it’s lap size. But this quilt has to keep that beautiful scalloped edge. And frankly, considering how long it’s taken me to get it to this point, I should be grateful to bind it. Perhaps it will be ready for my parents’ 41st anniversary.
This is one of the many reasons that I’m glad my mom is also a quilter. She understands. I just don’t want to let that understanding act as an excuse to let Ruby Wedding lapse into UFO-dom.
