I'm Ba-a-a-ck!

Jack, Sandy Curran

It was an amazing, inspiring, and tiring day at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton Roads, Virginia.  I left home at 6:00AM in a dark foggy morning straight out of Hound of the Baskervilles. I picked up two other Wake Forest quilters and drove to Louisburg, NC where we met up with Sharon and Mary.  The weather improved to a beautiful day for travelling, especially as we crossed the coastal waters and arrived at the show. 


I looked at quilts non-stop from about 10:30 AM to 3:15 PM, took a little snack break, and then looked and "made donations," as Mary calls shopping at the vendor booths.


At 5:00 we left and had a delicious dinner at Chili's, complete with a few adult beverages for restorative purposes. The first picture is me and Donna Sontag.

The second is Mary, Sharon, and Christie.

I am so glad that I had a chance to attend this show and see the glorious work that today's quilters are producing.  I took lots of photos.  I remember telling the other girls that I must have taken at least 200.  When I transferred them to my computer this morning, I found that I had 888 pictures from the show!

Don't worry, I won't show you that many!  I will show a few categories of quilts per day.  I did not photograph every quilt, but there are a lot of them!

I will start with a special exhibit that I mentioned in my last post.  I absolutely loved the Linda Fiedler Retrospective.  Her work often features her technique of "thread-painting,"  in which she completely covers a flower, leaf, or other shape with harmonious colors of thread.  Most of her quilts are "Naturescapes."



Sampler Gone Awry, Linda Fiedler

In addition to her original designs and settings, I was enchanted with Linda's machine quilting of flowers, ferns, and other natural objects.

I showed a photo of Shell Island in my last post, but you have to see it up close to appreciate its loveliness.

Shell Island, Linda Fiedler

Shell Island, detail

Shell Island, detail

Linda's next quilt is one of the prettiest I have ever seen.  The Enchanted Pond is enchanting, indeed.

 

The Enchanted Pond, Linda Fiedler

The use of silver metallic thread for some of the features such as stars and dragonflies is very effective.

  

The Enchanted Pond, detail

The Enchanted Pond, detail

The Enchanted Pond, detail

Either my computer or Blogger is having a hard time inserting photos and text today, so I will end with just a few more photos of Linda's quilts.



The Day the Fog Froze, Linda Fiedler




   

The Colors of Earth, Linda Fiedler





The Colors of Earth, detail



Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival...Here I Come!

Heading out EARLY tomorrow morning for a quick day trip to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival!  Should be a blast!  I think there are five of us carpooling this year.  Won't be back until late...but I should have plenty of pictures and quilty news the next time I post!

There will be many special exhibits in addition to the regular quilt show.

 

This traveling quilt exhibit about Alzheimer’s will be exhibited at venues throughout the United States through 2015. It features 236 quilts. Long, narrow "Name Quilts" are made from 55 purple patches, each marked with the name of a person who has/had Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia. The "wrong" side of the fabric patches are showing. The color looks faded. The bright side of the cloth, full of the color and pattern of life, has been turned to the inside of the quilt, never to be seen again. The Name Quilts create a wall more than 10,000 names, representing and honoring the 5.4 million people in the United States who have this horrid disease. Hanging among the Name Quilts are 54 small format art quilts that tell the story of Alzheimer’s from a variety of perspectives. Read more at www.alzquilts.org.

There will also be one of the traveling exhibits from The Hoffman Challenge, and a special tribute to quilter Linda Fiedler.  I have taken a couple of workshops with Linda, and she has been a guest speaker at my guild.  A lovely lady and fabulous quilter, Linda is retiring after twenty-five years on the teaching circuit.

Shell Isle, by Linda M. Fiedler