Quilt Canada 2012- Shows, Shows and More Shows

Although Saturday is my day to really go through the major quilt shows at Quilt Canada. I wanted to stop in to both the National Juried Show and the Invitational Show to see the impact of so many beautiful and amazing pieces hanging in one single space. Neither of these shows disappointed. After seeing things on a grandiose level I will use Saturday to really get up a clsoe up and see the details and workmanship of the pieces. Again, amazing! There are no cameras aloowed in the NJS show, you are not even allowed to have pens in the show (not to mention food and drink) and NO touching the pieces. if you want to see the back, you must ask the women in the white gloves to lift pieces for you. Good quilt show etiquette! The invitational show cameras are permitted; I will try to credit as many artists as I can remember but just in case please refer back to www.canadianquitler.com for more of the completed listing of teachers, artists, and participants.

1. Heather Stewart included a muted down Broken Dishes pattern that I have to feel connected too as I share of love a smaller, repeated pieces jsut like Heather. I took her postage stamp class yesterday and can also claim to ahve a done a very similiar Broken Dishes quilt using a Kaffe Fasset design a few years ago (it showed at GNAF that year). Heather's piece was made of textured Japanese fabrics... amazing!

2. Elephants- This piece was catching many people's EYES at the show and so I took a detailed photo of the EYE of the elephant. There is a lot of detailed and small scale machine quilting on this and it seems to be them of quilting recently/this year. Many of the NJS pieces have it also and it must be what judges are looking for; note to self. remember this is not your grandma's quilting!

3. There was two great pieces by Jo Diggs, including the under the sea images that caught my eye. People LOVE quilting fish and under the sea themes and they usually do NOT interest me at ALL but this one captured my attention.

4. Finally, a large scale photo and a detail of a piece that I have HUGE respect for. I amazes me when artists focus on abtract peices AND hand stitching/embellishments. I could sew a straight line with aneedle and thread to save me life and I am sure my hand would start cramping up after a few stitches! Big props to textile artists who explore this type of work!

Enjoy... and keep encouraging creativity and art!