Nice day at a quilt show...

I invited my MIL to go along with me this morning to the Genesee Valley Quilt Club quilt show, which they do every two years. It's a really big show--they take over the fieldhouse at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Lots of special exhibits, nice selection of vendors... Seems that every time they've had it, I've been out of town. This was the first chance I had to go, and I invited my MIL to come along to see a little more of "my world." She really enjoyed herself. I didn't take a ton of pictures--I was mostly enjoying just looking at things. And since I was using my cell phone several that I did take didn't come out well. But here are a few that came out OK that you'll enjoy...

"Gary's Quilt" by Sonya Pease. Sonya's a friend from my guild and my often-retreat-roomie, but I didn't even realize this was her quilt until after I started snapping pictures of it.

The colors attracted me at first, and I'm a sucker for a nice medallion center. But when you get closer to this quilt...











...you realize it's 3D! Check out the blocks--folded fabric. I didn't get a great picture of the border but you can sort of tell from this photo that it's also dimensional. Very cool

This is detail of the center medallion, which is also dimensional. Very hard to tell from this picture, but each of those little darker radials in the center is folded, and if I recall, so are the rust-colored points as well. (Don't quote me on that one now, though--I saw a lot of quilts today!)

I dug the fact that the dimensionality on this quilt was sort of a surprise element--you don't notice it until you're right up on it. Wonderful. Nice job, Sonya!

My cell phone camera really blurred this one--sorry. But it was a great photo quilt entitled "Tribute to the Women of Kenya" by Margaret Reek. The sign card read, "This quilt is a tribute to the Kenyan women pictured here, CTC International who rescued them and their disabled children from despair, and the American Sewing Guild Team who taught them to sew."

I love that she used this setting, in the shape of the country of Kenya, and the colors are from the Kenyan flag. The photo blocks are interspersed with blocks with symbols and sayings on them, and yes, that's a tail hanging down one side. Loved it.

And now for something completely different... "Winter Afternoon" by Caris Burton. The line running through the middle was blue--my cell sort of washed it out. I love the serenity of the piece. The quilting was straight horizontal lines across for most of it, but it was broken up by occasional boxes of other directional quilting.

"Many Molas" by Linda Bachman was inspired by molas from Panama. The card didn't say whether "inspired by" means that the applique blocks were molas themselves or whether Linda had made them based on molas. I tend to think the latter because there were other quilts in the show also inspired by molas--apparently it was a challenge.

I loved this quilt--great colors, great combination of machine and hand quilting/embroidery, and the setting and borders really worked with the feel of the mola blocks as well.

I love quilts in unusual shapes and this one grabbed me. "Legadema, Burnt Ebony's Daughter," by Patricia G. Faulkner, was inspired by one of her husband's photos from the Okavango River Delta in Botswana. I love how she laid the subject behind the grassy elements--you really do get the feel of the wild in this one.

One of the special exhibits was the "Fiber Face Project." Unfortunately I didn't get all the details of the project but it was a collection of local city school kids who had all done self-portraits in fabric. They were very, very cool. This one was the first prize winner, although how they could've chosen was beyond me.

Gotta love the wholecloth quilt, right? "Double Trouble" by Ruth Ohoi was gorgeous--and this was the back of it! Unfortunately, there were no "helping hands" folks in sight for me to get a look at the other side. It's also brown--I have no idea why my cell phone decided to turn it white. It didn't change the color much on any other quilts. Go figure.

One of the exhibits was the Keepsake Quilting Challenge first and second prize winners from the last few challenges. Here is Diane McClure's first prize winner of the "Welcome to Spring" challenge from 2009. I just loved those bunnies--and I especially loved how she quilted them. Very simple.

Can you tell how small this is based on the car clipped to it? "Cosmos in Lavender and Green" by Jean Cody was the result of a class with George Siciliano, who is well known for miniatures.

Detail of "Cosmos." Look at that. Gorgeous. Intense.

I've always been a fan of quilts that take the center out into the border in some way. This one also mixes boxes with kaleidoscope hexagons, and then blows them out the sides like they can't be contained. "Asian Wonder" by Judy Perkins is based on the One Block Wonders Encore book. I love Judy's colors, color placement, and border treatments.

And lookie who I ran into? Beth Davis, of episode 10 "In Which We Chat with an Appraiser," is the Genesee Valley Quilt Club historian and had a fantastic display (which my BFF/BQF Kate helped create and staffed on occasion, although she left before I got there--I ran into Kate at one of the vendors later buying, guess what?, fabric). Beth gave my MIL and me a quick demonstration of yo-yo makers as yo-yos were part of the historical quilt display, and they were encouraging people to sit in the booth and make them. Unfortunately, my MIL and I were on our way out at that point so we didn't try our hands at it, but I will probably be buying myself a yo-yo maker soon. I'm not a huge fan of yo-yos, but the pinwheel quilt I'm working on is crying out for them. So thanks, Beth, for showing me that the yo-yo maker tool would really speed things up for me!

That's all the pictures that are worth sharing--not that the other quilts weren't beautiful but my cell was just not cooperating and none of the other pictures came out well. Including, most disappointingly, the grand prize winner. Hopefully GVQC will post photos on their website!

I didn't do much at the vendors--I did buy two jelly rolls of neutrals at one vendor who had a really good price. Jelly rolls are often shy on neutrals so it'll be nice to have some as back-up.

Then I came home and, filled with inspiration, worked for another hour on my stash challenge project. It's coming along well!