The Indiana Heritage Quilt Show 2023

This was my first time to attend the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show and it lived up to the reviews I’d heard – smaller, but packed with lots of great quilts. Many of them were not the usual suspects, which I found refreshing. It is a petite venue, yet there seemed to be enough room to get a good look at a quilt if you had some patience.

I LOVE that the Best of Show was a hand quilted beauty that took the maker 7 years to complete! It was a treasure. I don’t feel that it photographs well for some reason, so you will be able to appreciate its beauty even more through the detail shots below:

Wilhelmina wanted to use techniques that she has learned throughout the years. Her quilt includes stipple quilting, trapunto, beadwork, hand applique, hand embroidery and dimensional flowers.

I chatted with a fellow SAQA member, Karen Hampton and once I ran through my photos, I realized I included 3 quilts of hers, all very different:

English paper piecing, her first attempt!

A digital print of her photo.

Paint and applique.

The show is always judged by NACQJ Judges (Nat’l Assoc of Certified Quilt Judges) and a newly minted NACQJ Award of Merit Recipient was in 2 of my classes:

I don’t know that my photo conveys how beautiful and interesting this quilt was. Her statement:
“I wanted to showcase the subtle coloring and complexity of this original historical textile –  a torn piece of Damask cotton with a stamped floral repeat; pleated and stitched; dipped in indigo dye, the ends dipped in the same dye. Finished, it was a body wrap – skirt top, head.”

The beauty is in the story and how she honored the significance of the original piece and thoughtfully added her own touch. It was stunning.

Moving along:

Enjoyed those happy appliqued flowers floating across this quilt.

A great example of using fabrics that I would not have thought would work.

Gotta love a cheddar quilt.

I enjoyed those saturated colors.

I feel the joy.

Becky Goldsmith’s Teacher’s Choice

Liberty of London fabric, made in honor of the maker’s Mother-in-Law.

Great use of negative space.

Love the texture from the ruler work.

Beautifully done; gotta love a grid background.

Of course I loved this black and white!

Precise and intricate piecing and thoughtful use of color.

I adore this pattern, the colors and the grid work.

Some great fabric choices add to the “flutter”.

I just love this traditional pattern and its satisfying repetition, all perfectly pieced.

Gotta love some Kaffe.

So much to like here – applique, 2-color qlt, cheddar, the quilting.

Red, white and….pink, with fabulous quilting.

So pretty; bet it weighs a ton.

Please note, there was another exhibit, Inspired By Endangered Species: Animals and Plants in Fabric Perspectives. The quilts were hung edge-to-edge and there was a whole wall of their beauty. But I overwhelm when a mass of quilts are hung right next to each other. I can’t even begin to appreciate them, my brain hurts. Sorry, I know there were some beauties in there, but I overwhelm when there are too many to separate in my mind.

The Featured Artist was Peggy Brown, a water colorist who has taken her talent to cloth. There must have been 30 of her pieces on display, a sight of ethereal beauty to behold. Just a few selections:

I was there to teach. I did forget to take many photos, but I’ve got a few:

The University of Sewing hosted an open house while I was there. Locals are lucky to have a great dealer right there. The store has a great selection, and, lots of wonderful garment fabrics too!

As an Instructor, I had the privilege of choosing a “Teacher’s Choice” quilt. I was worried about this – how was I going to choose out of all those quilts? And, I was the last to arrive, so everyone was waiting for me to go to dinner with them. Yikes!

It turned out to be easy, this quilt spoke to me, beckoned me in:

I know, you’d a thought I would have chosen an art quilt, right? I loooooved this quilt, something spoke to me. Once I read the card, I understood why – “I have been rescuing and deconstructing old/vintage quilts from estate sales since 2017. I made this quilt from two nine patch quilts circa early 1900’s, some orphan blocks, new fabrics, and the wrong side of some 1990’s fabric from my stash. It is the first quilt I free motion quilted on my new sit-down long arm“.

Of course I chose this quilt, what charm! And here is what I wrote:

And no photos, but one of THE Most Fun things about the trip was hanging with the other teachers. The food was absolutely fabulous in Bloomington, and Maria Shell, Becky Goldsmith, Sue Nickels, Marilyn Foreman and I had great fun at dinner and lunch.

And this is what the beginning of take down looks like:

It’s a wrap!

I’ll be linking up with:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
and
Finished or Not Friday