QuiltCon 2016
I love Pasadena - mostly because of the sister association - she's lived in/around there for 20 years. But also for the Rose Parade, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Vroman's Bookstore and the Children's Museum where you can watch all these Southern California kids get excited about a patch of ice that their parents keep telling them is 'snow.' So I will take any excuse to go, and QuiltCon 2016 was such a good one!
This is embarrassingly late - the event was almost a month ago now, but I'm still thinking about things I saw there - apparently the judges and I have different taste, because few of my favorites won (although if you get your quilt hung at QuiltCon I'd count that as a win).
Loved this:
The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts by Cassandra Beaver
Especially the way she quilted with colored threads to get that movement:
This is what it looks like when someone says "love" out loud:
Big Love by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill
I'm always into bright colors and the overlapping effect these quilters achieved:
Color Study (Triangles)- Erika Mulvenna
Fraction - Louise Orth
Sunburst - Yvonne Fuchs
And this crazy 3-D quilt:
Lunar Orbit - Victoria Mansfield
Then there was the one that stopped me in my tracks (and took QuiltCon to the front page of the LA Times that day).
The One for Eric - Chawne Kimber - won for best improv
Finally, I need to mention the quilt that won Best In Show.
My Brother's Jeans byMelissa Averinos
I walked by this a few times without looking that closely. It was cool, but it didn't 'grab' me the way many of the others did. I finally read the description on the last day and it completely changed the way I looked at the quilt.
I get why it won. There was something really bare and honest about this tribute - the delicate flowers and the aged, off-white fabric scrapped together looked so soft and vulnerable contrasted with the torn denim that had this golden glow coming through the holes. It felt like she'd captured a whole person, all sides of him, not just his despair.
So that was it. I did get to go a to a few lectures on everything from color theory to designing with your computer. They all ended with more or less the same message:
So why am I typing? I need to get quilting!
