Long Beach-2013!

How sad-this was the last year for International Quilt Festival-Long Beach. I taught 2 classes and a Forum and had THE BEST time! I feel like I just got my feet on the ground and now it’s gone. But it was a great festival and who can beat the location in beautiful Long Beach?

IQFLB is an exhibit, not a competition so the quilts and art there were the best of the best-I was at times almost overwhelmed by the beauty of them. Two exhibits debuted there: “Maps” sponsored by Quilts on the Wall and “An Exquisite Moment” sponsored by Dinner at Eight.

David Charity‘s “Bit Map” was an interesting play on words for the “Maps” exhibit. David says that his quilt represents one of the more interesting traits of the Basenji breed-the enjoyment of shredding paper, giggle.

“An Exquisite Moment” was a show stopper-every quilt intrigued. All 33 quilts were in a 24″ x 60″ vertical format.

Sheila Frampton-Cooper created the quilt to the right, Ode to Lavendula using a mono printing process. It is a gorgeous quilt. I forgot to take a photo of her write up so I can’t say much more-just enjoy the quilt!

My heart sunk into this one and resonated. Lyric Kinard‘s description of “Bach Suite 1”: “the bliss of music, the sweetness of sound, the richness of a bow pulled over deep cello strings”-YES!

Leslie Tucker Jenison‘s “From the Redwood Forest: A Moment in Montgomery Grove” describes her first encounter with the majestic redwoods. I can relate to that feeling of awe.

Paula Chung hand painted and heavily quilted her image of an ancient juniper in a well trafficked area of the Sierras. How can we miss its beauty and grandeur?

Sherry Kleinman painted, printed and appliqed to achieve this image. It so speaks to me-that exquisite period of time when new life is growing in your body. I absolutely love this piece and I’m in awe of Sherry’s ability to capture gesture and emotion in her work.

Oh if I could do color like this! Anita Welty shibori dyed and painted her fabrics to achieve this gorgeous piece “Panta rhei-Al Is flowing”. Al means spirit and Anita wanted to capture the flow of ideas and life and seasons to reflect that spirit.

Michelle Jackson worked from a photograph to create “Colores”, using her unique take on color. I’m in awe of this piece. If only I could do this with color.

I have the fabric that is the basis for this piece, but I am astounded at what Carolyn Vroom has done to create “Forest Intrigues”! She fussy cut and pieced to create this fabulous quilt. If you look closely you will see that some figures are dark and menacing and some are innocent. Carolyn is depicting the duality of what goes on in Wall Street: the innocent and the wolves.

Judith Trager pieced and silkscreened her fabrics to create this gorgeous piece, “April”. She is showing the progression of April in Colorado-the month begins with wet snow storms and ends with the promise of summer. I could enjoy this piece alone for hours.

Melinda Bula‘s “Monet in Pasadena” has gathered ribbons everywhere it travels. Melinda created this piece from a photo of Huntington Gardens in the early morning light. She hand dyed her fabrics to achieve this beautiful piece-it is stunning in person and just gives you peace to look at it.

I was one of 7 teachers to present at the Friday Forum. Each teacher had 12 minutes to work with a small group of students and then the students rotated to the next teacher. I would have loved to have been a student too! I had a fabulous time showing “Fabulous Free Motion Feathers-The Easy Way!”. It seemed to really resonate with many students so I was thrilled with the positive feedback. And uh, note to self: create a set up with way more visual impact for future presentations.

I also taught “You CAN Free Motion Quilt” to a packed class of students and had a blast! Sometimes a class gives you the gift of synergy and this class was so cool-it was filled with positive energy and fun! One of my students declared that I had helped “exorcise” her of her “fear of free motion”! How cool is that? I did not think to take photos but I will probably have some up later on Face Book as my friend Helen Hardwick took some great shots.

More synergy-there were seven  (maybe more) members from my local guild at Festival! The Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild was well represented and I think we made a nice impact on the vendors too!

My friend and guild member Helen Hardwick, along with her good friend Barbara Schneider (remember BJ’s Fabrics?-that’s her!), were part of Debbie Caffrey‘s team at the Iron Quilter’s Challenge. If you go to any IQF Festival, you MUST attend this event. It is presented stadium style with each team given the task of creating a quilt top in 2 hours. Attendees can freely roam to watch the action and there are lots of other things going on: Show and Tell, prizes, dancing, good food, rabble rousing, etc. all emceed by Pokey Bolton-it was great fun. The Prize? A highly coveted tacky, gaudy, gold spray painted iron!

As you can see it was a whirlwind weekend-I didn’t even capture it all here. One huge additional bonus for me was being able to meet and get to know some of the teachers I admire. I found the other teachers to be so friendly and encouraging and inspiring! Can’t wait to teach at Houston in the Fall!!