7.14.13

Jacobean Terraria is by Cleo Berry Ward. She taught this as a Block-of-the-Month class. In her version, you can see she used leaves to unite the blocks with the borders and give the quilt an "all of a piece" kind of feeling.

Look at close ups of some of her work. BEADS!

ORANGE!

BATIKS!



HAND QUILTING!





She says the pattern is from the book Jacobean Applique Book II by Patricia Campbell and Mimi Ayars. The pattern name is Romantica.

At the East Cobb Quilt Show2013,  I wanted to know where her ribbon was for this beautiful work.

7.12.13

This was a most interesting piece. Sherry Steinway's Fish Basket has a lot of beads and embellishments but does not at all look overdone. The creel in the middle has a "caught" fish. 

I tried very hard to get close to it to take a better picture, but the people backed up in front of another quilt spilled over in my way. I had to quickly snap this between shoulders. The East Cobb Quilt Show had a variety of artists and offerings, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything about the quilt that drew all those people and kept me from getting close to THIS one. It has a lot of embellishments including what I think may be serendipitous needle lace as the froth. There are shells and beads all over. 

The fish give the impression of being removable, but you KNOW I would not touch it to find out. The quilting is lively and adds the texture that the three dimensional creel and fish require for balance without taking away from the central theme. You can see the muddy bank and then the texture changes immediately to sinuous water ripples with bead "bubbles". The coloring of the water runs vertically, opposed to  the gentle water undulations. This gives the impression of reflections from the further bank.

On that other bank, at the water's edge, are frothy lace and beaded vegetation with dimensionally quilted puffs of pale color.

Instead of rewriting the artist's statement, I will show you the picture I took of it so you can see a close up of some of nearby embellishments.

 

7.11.13

Robin Meyer made this quilt, using dark gray cloth from Uganda. She says the design is from Elizabeth Hartman's book Modern Patchwork.  

The blocks themselves have tremendous potential. 

 

Meyer chose to put birds in her houses. Some of the fabric she used is in my stash, waiting for me to be this creative.

The rooflines are not all the same and yet all the houses have a sameness. 

The birds are not all the same and yet they are all birds with the same background. 

The houses are not all the same color, but the ones that are, are composed with the same fabrics yet in a different arrangement. 

Alike and different. Contrast. Meyer chose an interesting binding which underscores her contrast/comparison theme.

I really enjoyed this quilt, and I am enjoying it all over again while analyzing what makes it successful. 

7.10.13

 Here you go, another East Cobb Quilt. This one got a ribbon. It is modern, geometric, and colorful.  Of COURSE I liked it!

It is called Red Stix and made by Nancy Perkins. She says she made it at a quilt retreat and was inspired by a quilt in one of Gwen Marston's books. 

The quilting was done by Paula Wexler and is the perfect counterpoint.

Some of the things I admire in addition to the quilting decisions are about the colors. Perkins chose several shades of red and scattered them on a "background" of the darker red. Sort of contained chaos. 

The stix themselves are solid except the white. The addition of the black print on the white softens and sharpens the overall effect at the same time.  Magnificent.

7.7.13

This is Beverly Alter's Miniature entry in the East Cobb Quilt Show. I have Storm at Sea on my Quilt List. It has been there for a long time. After seeing this, I am energized. I love the fluid movement and the unexpected color choice for this pattern.

She writes that it describes the changeable weather in Georgia. She made it with paper piecing, which sure makes sense to me. Look at the centers, they are pieced four-patches.

To give you an idea of how small this is, I took a picture with my finger about 2 inches in front of the quilt--NOT TOUCHING THE QUILT SINCE I KNOW BETTER-- and you can see at what scale she was working.That makes those center four-patches about the size of my thumbnail. Remarkable.

7.6.13

 Before I went to the 2013 Pieceful Mountain Quilt Retreat, I was lucky enough to attend the Eat Cobb Quilt Show. I even bought a souvenir from one of the vendors, Little Quilts. I saw some wonderful quilts executed with great enthusiasm and technical skill. Some quilts had both. I photographed what struck me and since I already told you I judge a book by its cover, you can pretty much guess that I made instantaneous decisions about what to snap.

Since you know I am interested in the Modern Quilt Movement, I am sure you looked at the picture above and said to yourself, "Well, it has orange and lavender and geometrics. Bet she took that picture because she loved it." You would be right. I show you a close up of  COLOR SERIES by Tycoa Noble. She writes, "I am drawn to yellow and gold colors. It makes me feel happy inside creating positive energy.  This color series quilt was created intuitively and pieced spontaneously using an assortment of hand-dyed fabrics, creating a quilt with color into Art."

The linear stitching--perfectly vertical and horizontal lines give a physical and visual structure to the haphazard appearance of joyful strips and blocks of color. (My words, not hers) I would give her a Ribbon of Success for accomplishing her goal.