Innovative Quilts at Pacific International Quilt Festival XX

As promised, here are a few of my favorite innovative quilts that competed at the Pacific International Quilt Festival XX last month. With over eight hundred works of textile art showing, it was difficult to choose.

The quilters drew inspiration from boundless sources. Roberta Deluz did not have to go far to let her imagination go wild. She designed It Came from Beneath the Sea as a tribute to her father who instilled a love for classic monster movies in her.

I will never be able to look at the clock of the San Francisco Ferry Building without wondering what might ooze up the tower from the bay below.

I can related to Janet Fogg's Magic in Times Square, her interpretation of her first cab ride in New York City .

Other quilters were inspired from faraway continents. Pat Rollie's thirty years of quilting experience is evidenced in her original design depicting a tender scene from the Serengeti. As I saw this quilt, I longed to go back to Africa and encounter a mother giraffe and her calf once again.

My 85-year-old mother made a small wall quilt for an Indian friend featuring the Taj Mahal...

...and exotic creatures.

Nancy S. Brown deservedly won the best hand workmanship ribbon for her wonderfully composed penguins of South Georgia in Antarctica.

It wasn't until I took a closer look that I noticed that the penguins were navigating between mounds of  elephant seals.

In contrast to the cold of the South Pole, Hilda Koning-Bastiaan chose to depict the warm hues of a blooming desert.



Sherry Reynolds honored her beloved Wyoming with this cowboy quilt. She made five variations of the traditional Wyoming Valley block pattern in the upper right.

In another warm desert scene, Kathleen Malvern of Colorado celebrated the majestic saguaro cactus...

... while Kimberly Buzolich celebrated the Sierra Tiger Lily. I like how she produced the soft-focus feeling of the background with the pools of greens and the swirled quilting.




Pat Durbin used every scrap of  her twenty years of quilting experience to render the larger-than-life interpretation of Begonia Picotee Lace...

,,,  in exquisite detail.

While Pat Durbin zoomed in on her subject, Jo Bauer took a panoramic view in Reflections of  Mt. Shuksan.

Other quilters turned to fine art for inspiration. Megan Farkas mimicked a Japanese woodblock print...

...and Kim Butterworth's Cherry Blossoms reminded me of Van Gogh's almond blossoms.

Ellen Wong embraced abstract art by piecing together strips of commercial fabrics...

...and quilting a grid pattern that gives the work a pleasing uniformity.

Kathleen Collins's fascination with 18th century European court paintings of women in headdresses inspired her to create original paintings on cotton cloth...

... which she then incorporated into a pair of elegant quilts.

Nancy S. Brown had productive year. In addition to the penguin and seal quilt above, she finished this poignant quilt of a grandmother at the San Francisco Zoo.

Sue Anthony found a wonderful way to preserve her grandmother's dress...

... and Giny Dixon showcased her father's silk ties...

... set in wool flannel pinstripe resulting in a true work of art.

Congratulations to all the quilters here. I am inspired by your creativity and sewing artistry.

Traditional Quilts of California at Pacific International Quilt Festival XX

California quilters had a productive year this year. Here is a sampling of my favorite traditional quilts that were shown in the Pacific International Quilt Festival XX.

Geraldine Nall's miniature wall quilt stopped me in my tracks. She used a mind-boggling 6,300 pieces of fabric to create a quilt that is a mere 23" square. Using only the pineapple blocks pattern, Nall created 140 tiny 1 1/2" to 2 1/2" squares. The result is a stunning, balanced interplay of black and white.

 

Diana Tatro belongs to a group of sixteen quilters that exchanges quilt blocks each year.

This year's red and white basket theme created the building blocks that produced a beautiful quilt with unity and rhythm.

Holly Casey drew inspiration for this striking blue and gold Dizzy Geese quilt from a book by L. Amanda Owens and Patricia Wilens. I like the trend-setting geese in the lower right corner.

Clem Buzick and Ann Helbling created "Maritime in Red"...

...with intricate quilt motifs.

Next time, the innovative quilts. 

Halloween at Pacific International Quilt Fest XX

For all you overachieving recyclers out there, I have a suggestion for what you can do with the Halloween candy wrappers your kids will be bringing home tomorrow night. You can follow in Charlotte Kruk & Carol Traumiller's footsteps and get a head start on next year's Halloween costume.

"Flam & Menco" by mother-daughter team: Charlotte Kruk & Carol Traumiller 

Or you can be inspired by Flora Story and create an original Halloween quilt and ask June Hollister to do the long-arm quillting for you.

"Witches 'R' Us" by Flora Story and June Hollister

If don't have time to do either of these projects, perhaps you can buy a kit to make this whimsical wall quilt. The candy corns are buttons that may be purchased separately.

"Candy Corn Lane", Quilt pattern and kit by Holly Hill Quilt Designs

All three projects seen at the Pacific International Quilt Festival XX in Santa Clara, CA

Enjoy your Halloween!

Crochet Coral Reef Sculptures Explain Mathematics

Image from here.

My thanks to Patricia Powell Kessler for posting this TED video on the sidebar of her blog. This talk appeals to me on so many levels. Margaret Wertheim discusses marine biology, the mathematics of hyperbolic geometry, textiles, folk art, environmental activism, and the passion of spontaneous creativity.

"America, Let It Shine" Quilt by Sherry Reynolds

Yesterday I took my mother to the Pacific International Quilt Festival XX in Santa Clara. If you are only going to see one quilt, I recommend you battle your way to the masterpiece "America, Let It Shine" by Sherry Reynolds. You may have to wait a bit before you can see it in its entirety.

 

In the mean time, you may start by reading the tag. You will understand that the use of graph paper explains how Reynolds achieved absolute precision and uniformity of symmetry.

You'll be impressed that she used a 20-year-old Bernina 1001 to create the free motion quilt design.

The quilt is steeped with symbolic meaning.  The thirteen original colonies are represented in the border's blue rays and red triangles:

The 4,886 Swarovski crystals that embellish this quilt represent the sum of the 4,543 words of the Constituion, 312 words of the Star Spangled Banner, and 31 words of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Reynolds incorporated parts of American history by using parts of the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble of the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address.

You will know that her goal to create "a tribute to America, our foundations and values, with the hope that they will guide us to a brighter future" was achieved from top to bottom and front to back. 

The show runs through Sunday at the Santa Clara Convention Center. More information here.

The Sami People of Nordkapp

This summer we took a cruise on the Norwegian passenger and freight line Hurtigruten ("Express Route" in English) We boarded the "Midnatsol" in Bergen and sailed for one week up to Kirkenes.  One of the last stops of our voyage was the North Cape (Nordkapp), located well north of the Arctic Circle.

One of the surprises on this cruise is that I did not spot more birds along the way. I fully expected to see many breeding grounds along the coastline, but it was surprisingly bare. I was therefore on high alert when I saw a few small dots bobbing in the water about an hour before we docked.

A closer examination revealed that these dots were puffins. Not a great picture, but it's the only one I have.

Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica)

I had the option to take the bird safari excursion, where I would have been able to see large flocks of puffins and kittiwakes and even the mighty sea eagles, but ultimately I chose to join the rest of my family on the bus tour to see the North Cape (Nordkapp), 21 miles away, on the north side of the island of Magerøya. 

We docked in Honningsvåg, which claims to be the northernmost city in Norway, or even the world, but there are several other cities who dispute this claim. The village was occupied by the Germans in World War II; sadly, only the chapel was spared destruction. After the war,  many of the houses were restored to their original style, using the original color scheme. Historically, white was the most expensive paint color and therefore the most prestigious. Prestige or not, the white houses would not look as pristine and idyllic were it not for the occasional red and yellow structures against the bright green grass. 

We boarded a bus that drove us past the traditional fish racks which still had cod drying in the sun before winter sets in. 

We saw many more racks on the hillsides, but they had already been picked bare. 

The bus careened along the winding roads across the bald sub-arctic landscape of the island.

Periodically the bus driver would point out reindeer grazing on the short grass. See if you can spot the stag and three does below. Don't worry if you can't, I had trouble seeing them too. If you're hell-bent on seeing them, you can click here . Fortunately, we did get the opportunity to see more reindeer up close only a few minutes later.

Only the indigenous people called the Sami (also spelled Sámi, or Saami) are allowed to practice reindeer husbandry in Norway. Magerøya Island can boast 5,000 reindeer, all owned by five Sami families. The reindeer are allowed to roam freely, with only minimal fencing to keep them from harm. 

The tags in the ears of the reindeer indicate ownership. 

Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus)

Both males and females grow antlers.  I was amazed how fuzzy they were (no, I did not touch them). 

To save energy, they shed them annually. On our way back to the ship, we found shed antlers offered for sale in a small Sami shop near the ship.

The bus stopped at a Sami trading post where a Sami posed with tourists in his colorful native costume. It is not difficult to imagine the seed of inspiration for Santa's elves' costumes.

The Sami use a temporary shelter, called a lavvu, which is strikingly similar to the teepees of Native Americans of the Great Plains. The portability of this structure allows the herdsmen to follow their reindeer.

Traditionally the reindeer hides were used as a cover, but now lighter fabrics are used to lighten the load. The long straight poles to construct these dwellings must be prized because tall vegetative growth appears to be scarce in this region. To our surprise there was an open fire inside, but the smoke easily escapes from the smoke hole at the top. 

The interior walls were decorated with the gorgeous native attire made with generous yardage and elaborate workmanship. I can imagine how fantastic these crisp, bright colors would look in the stark white snow. 

The trousers are made of reindeer hides.

The style and colors used in these these garments appear to be a perfect blending of Scandinavian, Russian, and Northwest Indian cultures.  Not surprising, given that all these descend from within the Arctic Circle and the nomadic nature of the Sami people. 

Many Sami regard the term Laplander as a pejorative term. In most Scandinavian languages the word "lap" means a patch of cloth used for mending. Where one culture used a scrap of fabric out of necessity, one could see how it may be difficult to understand that another culture used them as artistic adornments. 

We had only a few minutes to take a look at the goods offered in the trading post. My sister is to be commended for finding and purchasing a splendid black wool shawl for our mother in less than five minutes.

The Sami people suffered from laws of forced assimilation into the Norwegian culture, which peaked from 1900 to 1940 when anyone who wanted to buy or lease state lands for agriculture in the county had to have knowledge of the Norwegian language and register with a Norwegian name.

Sami Family, 1900, Source: Wikipedia

Despite these pressures and other draconian practices since the nineteenth century, the Sami prevailed. The pressures to chip away at their colorful culture is now coming from all around the globe.

I dearly hope that the Sami culture continues to prevail so that the world can enjoy their artistry.