River City Quilt Festival

I love going to quilt shows! The River City Quilt Guild’s show was this weekend-I go every year and I think this is the best show they’ve ever done. Jan Soules was the featured quilter and there must have been 30 pieces of Jan’s work in the show. Jan has won many Best of Shows, Best Use of Color, etc and many of her quilts have hung in international shows throughout the country. Jan masterfully uses color, value, design and unusual fabrics. This quilt, “Sunrise, Sunset”, quilted by Deb Lopez, is in the American Quilting Society’s Annual Engagement Calendar for 2012. Talk about moving the eye around the quilt…you just couldn’t get away from this one. There is so much detail in there, so much visual impact, look at all the energy in her fabric choices!“Zig Zag” was another stunner. Look carefully at the fabric in the zig zags-who’d a thunk that one? She can use large scale print fabrics with such fabulous results. The mix of blocks is eclectic too. And I would never have thought that mix of fabrics would work well together. The detail show shows some of her unusual fabric choices. She said she got the zig zag fabric in the super discount bin at Beverly’s! “Garden Maze“, quilted by Shelley Nealon, is an earlier work that shows her excellent use of color and fabric. .One of many detail shots I took, this shows just one clever detail: she couched yarn into the space between the rick rack and binding-lovely! Connie Horne had so many items entered they gave her her own alcove! What an overachiever, grin! Every item she entered was wonderful-all SEVEN of them! “Friends Forever” commemorates a  friendship Connie has had since Junior High-I loved this piece. With all that color in the room, this piece, “Naturally Natural” by Dawn Licker, quilted by Holly Nichols, really stood out. I especially enjoyed the subtleness of the neutrals, yet there was still a lot of interest in the fabrics. The quilting was very simple and perfect for this piece. Kris Sazaki and Deb Cashatt (the “Pixeladies“) collaborated on this triptych-“Mapping the Toyama Family”. It was an intriguing piece that beckoned you in for the details. They printed words onto the fabric that described each person and each panel represented a person in the family. There were wonderful touches of hand embroidery and stitching throughout the quilt. I loved the way they joined the triptych together with this button closure. Laurel Anderson created “Fortissimo“. The swirlies were fused-what an impact! Notice too the hand-appliqued hearts and circles. There were a few quilts that represented the Modern Quilt Movement; “Fanciful Birds” by  Anita Johanson and quilted by Laura Jansenis a perfect example of this genre. I loved the way she used the large scale print and surrounded it with the piano keys.Elaine Mason made this unusual Log Cabin quilt-“Whirling Blades”. I admired its beauty and then thought, man, this must have been difficult. I chuckled because just as I thought that, I read the card where the maker said, “This quilt was difficult to make”-I’ll bet!Isn’t this cool? Denise Schmidt created “Crocus” out of all these striped fabrics, put it into a Cathedral Windows setting and came up with this. Just those little touches like the strong blue insert in between the square on point and the background make it so fun and keeps you looking for more detail. “Color My World” by Kim Brownell-charming! It’s about 18″ square and I couldn’t stop looking at all the different little houses. Delightful quilt.

There were actually lots of other fabulous quilts in the show that I can’t show you. I ran out of space, plus, some of my photos were just so poor that I didn’t feel like I should publish them. You’ll just have to go yourself next year!