Pacific International Quilt Festival XVIII – Traditional Quilts

Quilt #1502: “Inspiration Draws from Nature’s Art” 80” x 80”

Patricia Delaney

Abington, MA.

World Quilt Competition: Best Machine Workmanship – Traditional.

Oma and I went on our annual pilgrimage to the Pacific International Quilt Festival this week.You can read about our trip to last year’s festival here and see the 2008 quilt competition winners here. This show is the largest and highest quality quilt extravaganza on the West Coast. It features over 800 quilts and works of wearable and textile art, and over 300 merchant booths. If that’s not enough, you can attend any of the 60 or so workshops and lectures offered by world-renowned textile artists.

Here are some examples of the traditional quilts. I spent a lot of time studying Patricia Delaney’s red and white quilt. It certainly is no surprise that she won the ribbon for Best Machine Workmanship in the World Quilt Competition.

Quilt #1502 detail: “Inspiration Draws from Nature’s Art” 80” x 80”

Patricia Delaney

Abington, MA.

World Quilt Competition: Best Machine Workmanship – Traditional.

But it was more than the machine workmanship that set this quilt apart from others, there was something else. Then a fellow admirer pointed out Delaney’s description:

“As my morning walks allow me to escape everyday concerns, so does the time spent at my sewing machine. One of these walks inspired the flowing drawings of woodland ferns. I found each frond to be unique and perfect in its imperfection. The quilting and eight shades of thread reflect this variety. Just as the dappled light is reflected on the forest floor, so, too, the ten red, twenty-five whites and trapunto add shadow and depth to this quilt.”

Imagine twenty-five shades of white and ten shades red fabric plus eight shades of thread! The subtle shift of colors gave this quilt truly an organic feel to it.

Even though Vicki Slawson’s design of this eight-point star and checkerboard border is very intricate, the simple blue and white color scheme keeps the design strong and crisp:

Quilt #2117: “I Know Thy Works”

Vicki Slawson

Brentwood, CA

I regret that I can not give proper attribution for this next masterpiece because my photo was too fuzzy to read the tag. Thanks to Robbie Marie (see comment below) for recognizing this quilt! The quilt is called "Majestic Bugs"

"Majestic Bugs", 104" x 107", double batting
Irena Bluhm

The workmanship is world class – the surface was painted after all the quilting was complete.  112 bugs have been quilted into the background design. Here you can see a couple:

With use of ethnic fabrics, Linda Hibbert gives a new perspective to the traditional quilt:

“Kaleidostar 3”

Linda Hibbert

To see the superb machine quilting of this quilt, click here.

There’s nothing like a white-on-white quilt to show off someone’s workmanship.

Quilt #1508 “Irish Cream”, 84” x 84”

Linda M. Roy

Knoxville, TN

Best Hand Workmanship, Traditional – World Quilt Competition

Sandi Lush used colonial knots and glass seed beads to add interest and texture in her hand-quilted beauty named “Crystal Dreams”

Quilt #9507 “Crystal Dreams”, 86” x 86”

Sandi Lush

United Kingdom

First Place, Traditional –World Quilt Competition

Quilt #9507 “Crystal Dreams”, 86” x 86”

Sandi Lush

United Kingdom

First Place, Traditional –World Quilt Competition

Heather Harding’s choice of butter yellow fabric is inspired:

Quilt #7503 “Welsh Gold”, 56” x 56”

Heather Harding, New Zealand

It’s not often one sees Moorish designs in a traditional quilt.

Ronda K. Beyer

Tualatin, OR

Best Machine Workmanship, Traditional – Pacific International Quilt Competition 2009

The tiny crystal seed beads that Ronda K. Beyer added gave just the right amount of sparkle to this exotic quilt:

Quilt #2010 “Gypsy Rosalie”, 64” x 64”

Ronda K. Beyer

Tualatin, OR

Best Machine Workmanship, Traditional – Pacific International Quilt Competition 2009

Margo Hardie's all hand-sewn "Down Under Florabunda" is spectacular. I can spend days birdwatching here.

Quilt #2502 "Down Under Florabunda"

Margo Hardie, Australia

There were so many other fantastic traditional quilts. You can see some of them here and here and here. The full Flickr set is here.

Next time I will show you some of the quilts in the innovative category.

Seeds of Inspiration

The midterm assignment in my European Floristry class is to create a floral wall hanging. We must explain our inspiration, the flowers must be easily swapped out, and we must use skills and concepts we learned in the class so far. Recycling is one of the key concepts we learned about in this class. This is what I submitted.

The ability to set our ideas in print is a concept unique to our species. It began as cavemen depicted their conquests against the mammoth or bison on the walls of their dwellings. Fast forward thousands of years and we see Egyptians scribing their daily lives on papyrus scrolls. Medieval monks illuminated the hand-lettered manuscripts of religious ideals in exquisite detail. Gutenberg transformed the printed page by inventing the printing press with the use of movable type. The fonts of the movable type were stored in drawers like these; each cubbyhole holding a letter or punctuation mark. The printer would select the letters and string them together forming words, then sentences, then ideas. These drawers held the seeds of inspiration, waiting to be expressed onto the printed page. With the advent of electronic typesetting and the vanishing printed page, font drawers are a relic of the past, relegated to flea markets and dusty antique shops. How many seeds of inspiration have they held?

What if this drawer is repopulated with new seeds of inspiration?

***

I’ve owned two font drawers for close to ten years now. In the summer I like to fill them with many different kinds of seashells and in the autumn I love to fill them with findings from my walks.

I lined each cubbyhole with yellow cardstock which were left-over response cards from my wedding invitation. I chose yellow because it showed the best contrast to the stars of the show: the seeds. Most are held in place by tension alone, others are tacked down with glue dots. Most of the seeds are newly collected this month but some I’ve had for a few years. Only one item was purchased for the purpose of this project. One cubby has a non-seed item. The seeds are secured with either Elmer’s glue or glue gun. The fresh berries are in water tubes.

This pavé design uses an analogous color scheme, ranging from green to yellow then orange and red. The color is distributed along the diagonal, providing a line of movement, with brown neutrals in opposing corners. The seeds are loosely grouped by genus while striving to achieve good contrast in texture and color between neighboring cubbies. The repeating acorns and berries provide rhythm to the piece.

I’ve always wanted to hang these drawers on the wall and have the ability to change them easily with the seasons, so I thank you for this assignment.

Click on the photo to see a partial list of the seeds used.

In the spirit of recycling, this post is also submitted for Blog Action Day. With the exception of one very large, hairy acorn, all materials used for this project were either found objects or materials I already had on hand. Won’t you join me and close to twelve thousand other bloggers in sparking a discussion about climate change?