The Northwest Quilters 2009 Show

A few of you who have Reader know I wrote this a month ago, but never got around to adding the pictures. Check me out! I'm catching up!

Last year, I wanted to display quilts in as many shows as possible. Really, it seems like I spent half of the spring either attending a quilt show or on my way to drop off or retrieve a quilt. This year, not so much.

In fact, I've been a real quilting hermit. There were a couple of days when I couldn't make it to my guild's meeting because of a schedule conflict, and after that they had programs scheduled that were way too -- for lack of a better word -- girly. I'm just not into, for instance, learning how to make a quilted purse. Call me crazy. After a while, I hadn't had contact with the guild for half a year.

So I was out of the loop enough to forget that the guild's annual show would be in early spring this year, instead of early summer. By the time I caught on, it was way too late to submit work. But, I had just enough wherewithal to get my name in as a volunteer. I was what they used to call a "white glove lady" but which they were this year just calling "white glove." I appreciated the change.

And here's the thing: the show was awesome! In terms of organization and of the quality of work, it was easily among the best three shows I've ever seen. It got great press, and probably three times the number of guests as we had in recent years. So, that made me think that maybe I want to be less of a quilting hermit now, and get back into the community. It kind of inspired me, like. We'll have to see if the inspiration really "takes" or not, but in the meantime I've submitted a few of last year's quilts to be shown at the big summer outdoor show in Sisters.

I took several photos at the show based on gut response -- these are just a few of the ones I liked the best, with no particular reasoning applied.

The "I Would Never Make One Like This, But I Love It Anyway" Category

"Lady Liberty," pieced by Carol Brown, quilted by Carol Parks.

"Carley (Prairie Flower)" by Marjorie Rhime


"Most Amazing Story" Category

...and the story:

"These Quilts Give Me Ideas" Category

"Nine Blue Characters," pieced by Ann Johnston, quilted by Oswego Quilters.

"Batik Woven Star," pieced by Trudi Luther, quilted by Barbara Schulenburg.



"No Payne No Gain," by Maureen Orr Eldred.

This is Not a Post!

I got sick last week, and wasn't able to make the yearly Thanksgiving trip up to my sister's place.
In terms of momentum on my immediate quilting goals, it wasn't too bad of a hit. I lost all of the primo handwork time that comes with hanging out with the family at the holiday, but gained tons of home-sick-not-able-to-do-much-but-quilt time. I made plenty of progress, actually, especially on Saturday afternoon during the sad dismantling of the so-recently great University of Oregon football team.

Not a Quilt For My Sister!

Since we were going to be at her house, I had really hoped to get a picture this year of a quilt I made for my sister a few years back, but never adequately photographed. I was going to share it with you in this very post.

In its place, here's Kandinsky's 1923 painting Black and Violet.

Not a Family Tradition!

Not travelling to my sister's place also meant skipping the holiday tradition my mother and I have: waking at 5:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Friday and going down to the local JoAnne's to take part in the early-morning sales. We've been doing this for six or seven years. Even now that I'm too snooty to buy much actual fabric at JoAnne's, there's still plenty of other stuff on major sale; in particular, I usually lay in a year's supply of batting.

My plan was to take a charming little photo montage of this yearly adventure and to post it here for posterity. Alas, because I was sick at home, it never happened. So, instead of a cute shot of Mom as the two of us sneak out of my sister's house, here's Whistler's famous Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother.

This was going to be a picture of the other shoppers lined up in the rain and dark! Instead, it's a picture of a Depression-era breadline.

Obviously, since I wasn't there, I couldn't ask anyone to take a shot of Mom and me together. In its place, here's a picture of actor George Clooney with his mother.

The crowds inside were one person fewer this year, but if they were anything like usual they likely looked something like the chaos and horror evoked by Picasso's masterpiece Guernica.

That's Not All!

Actually, it is. I'll be back with a real post, one of these days.

Sisters 2007, part II

The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show is a pretty impressive event. It occupies the entire commerical district of a small town -- maybe 3 blocks by 5 blocks of nonstop quilts. They are on the enterior surfaces of the buildings, inside the shops, hanging from lines, displayed on racks -- everywhere. There are enough quilts, in fact, that it took two hours of walking around looking at quilts before I found my own quilt, which actually had a nice, prominent spot. If you like design and fabric, it was the place to be.

I like the ephemeral nature of the show. It's an enormous undertaking to set it up and take it down, and you can't let quilts sit out overnight, so as major events go it is pretty compressed. Quilts go up, cars and tour busses roll in, the crowds gawk, the quilts go down. It's a short-term experience -- kind of a quilt HAPPENING, man. They must have everyone from three counties either directing traffic, setting up and taking down, doing quilt security, or selling water. LOTS of people were selling water.


Naturally, the male quilter suffered his usual minor indignities.

Picking out "favorites" becomes a pretty meaningless exercise when you are wandering around among 1500 pieces. I basically just blazed away with the camera at anything I liked. I didn't repeat the statistical analysis of last year, but most of my personal preferences (geometrics, symmetry, jewel tones, contrast) are obvious in the ones that caught my eye. The photos are posted here.

Here's some stuff I liked:

There were a fair number of Hawaiian-style quilts in evidence. I think of the Hawaiian quilt as the highest form of the cut-out snowflake. Typically, you've only got two pieces of fabric; the first is symetrically cut in a radial pattern and appliqued onto the other, background fabric. Got that? Maybe an example would help. Here's one I really like: "Hawaiian Applique" by Alice Pedersen of Bend.

There were also quite a few kaleidoscope quilts, which are a little more self-explanatory. I can't picture myself ever doing one of these, but I think they are pretty cool to look at.... which is the point.... Here's "One Block Wonder in Blue" by -- well, I'll be damned -- Alice Pedersen, of Bend. You know, I didn't pay any attention at all to who made what (I just took pictures of the tags as well as the quilts). I guess I must like Alice Pedersen's work.

I like squares. Here's a simple but loveable square-intensive piece called "Cappuccino" by Jamie Conerly of Tigard (quilted by Erin Davis).

Finally, here's one that doesn't fit any particular category. I just think it's cool. "Monica's Graduation Quilt" by Margaret J. Miller, of Bremerton.

Lots more good stuff in the photo album. Or, for another take on the show, rebel wrote up a description too.

Sisters 2007, part I

Went down to Sisters on Saturday for the annual Outdoor Quilt Show, the largest such in the world. I'll blog it for real tomorrow, but for those of you who are jonsesing for the pictures -- that's you, Jen -- I figured I should post the link to them.

Enjoy!

What I Didn't Like In Seattle

OK! It is now but six (6) days until the Ducks host Stanford University for their home game opener, so we stand trembling on the very cusp of the 2006-2007 quilting season! Yes, it's a powerful moment for me as well. I'll pause a moment, to let you regain your composure.

... ...

Now, as it happens I will be in Section 36, Row 87, Seat 33 of Autzen Stadium next Saturday, so I will not be able to, uh, "kick off" the quilt season at the same time as the game itself. But, I will definitely make a point of doing a little token quilting before I leave, or after I get home, just to get some momentum going.

I'll need momentum. It's going to be an even more challenging quilting year than I had expected. But more on that, gentle reader, at the end of this post.

Pacific Northwest Quiltfest

First, I want to tell you about my trip to the Pacific Northwest Quiltfest, a show held in Seattle every two years. It is probably the highest-level show held in our region -- the "Pacific Northwest," whatever that means. It attracts the highest level of work, which is juried by a professional team of quilt mucky-mucks.

Frequently Asked Question: "Did you have a piece in the show?"

Answer: No, of course not. Nothing I have ever made could survive a professional jurying. I am still at least two or three years from even thinking of submitting something to a show of this caliber. A good goal might be to sneak something into the PNWQF in 2010.

So, the show was basically a very large room full of extremely well-made quilts. Extremely well-made quilts, and lots and lots of people who get excited by extremely well-made quilts. The joint was packed. And yet, it could be a lonely place -- if, for instance, you were being confronted once again with the fact that you share your hobby overwhelmingly with people of the opposite sex who are at least 20 years older than you.

[The gender aspect of this situation, by the way, was made quite graphically clear by the restroom situation in the exhibition hall. I provide these two photos as documentary evidence, as one or two or you will accuse me of exagerating, otherwise. You will probably need to see the full size images (click on 'em to bring 'em up to full size) to read the signs.]

But mostly, I was in a big room with lots of really, really amazing quilts, which was great. For quite a while, I replicated my experiment from the Sisters Quilt show earlier this summer, and did a little study of my own aesthetic preferences. That was still an interesting process, since with the much greater range of quilts at this kind of high-level show, there was also a greater range of Stuff I Liked. It was a good way to gather lots of ideas for future projects. More ideas for future quilt projects than I'll ever possibly be able to use, in fact, but that's cool. Better to have too many ideas than not enough, right?

After a few hours of photographing my favorites, I went back and photographed a selection of my least favorites. I didn't do this for myself, mind you -- I actually have a pretty solid understanding of what I don't like. No, gentle reader, I did this for you -- so you can see some of the kinds of quilts that I'm never going to tell you about otherwise, and so as a reader of this blog you can have a stronger sense of the context in which my quilts are made.

You're welcome.

Quilts That Just Aren't My Thing

But first, it's really important to me to make really, really clear that these are all, by any reasonable standard, very excellent, rocking quilts. The craftsmanship ranges from awesome to otherworldly, and the design, fabric choices, and quilting patterns on each are all impeccible. If you really like these quilts, or God forbid if you made one of these quilts, my hat is totally off to you. I just don't share your taste.

In fact, I'm not even going to try to be entertainingly bitchy.

I furthermore encourage anyone reading this to use my own work as examples of crap quilts in their own blogs, or better yet to write scathing comments in this blog explaining why my stuff sucks, particularly in comparison to the pieces shown here.

Having said that, let's proceed to the first group. The problem here, I guess, could be summarized as too grandmotherly. Not that I have anything against grandmothers, but usually we don't decorate the same way. I am not sure that I need to elaborate on this, but in general anything that pours on the flowers, hearts, or domestic scenes, or uses the palettes of the first half of the 20th Century, has an uphill battle to win my affections. The one on the upper left is traditional and, within that tradition, exquisite (the palette is also pretty bright, which helps). I could look at it for a long time, admiring it as a quilter, before noticing that it doesn't do much for me as, well, a person. If you follow me. With the other two, the lack of gut appreciation jumps out a little faster, but even here... damn, look at the quilting on the one on the right! Man! I would give my left, um, let's say pinkie, to be able to quilt like that.


It's a little harder to put a finger on what I fail to respond to in this second set, especially since I promised not to be entertainingly bitchy. They fall into a genre that some women would call "funky," having never listened to or even heard of Rick James. Know what I'm sayin'? There's an exhuberance there that doesn't quite do it for me. The one on the left further has words on it, which for me almost always reduces a quilt's impact. Couldn't tell you why. The one on the right -- which was a very difficult piece to make, incidently, and one where the artist did amazing work and suceeded impeccably in bringing her vision to reality -- is also figural, which brings us to the next set.


This one is easy -- I don't like figural quilts. Which is to say, I don't like the literal representation of humans or animals in fabric. Now, if you're thinking "what about the cow quilt?" -- well, that's different. It uses pieces of fabric on which figures are represented, which doesn't bug me. It's using the fabrics to create figures that I don't like. It requires a lot of skill, and it's very popular -- figural pieces often win "viewer's choice" awards at quilt shows -- but it just ain't for me.

My loss.

I guess this fourth set is also figural. There's also an added element here of sentimentality. They are twee -- not like, say, Tullycraft is twee, but like an after-school special is twee, like a cross-stitch of good advice in a perky rhyming couplet is twee. Which is fine! Really! I'm just saying, it's not my deal.


Why This Quilt Year is Going to be Even More Busy Than I Expected

So, at this juncture, I am going to shut up before I alienate more people that I already have. But first, I need to tell you why this quilt year is going to be even more busy than I expected.

When I was in Seattle, I ran into the new president of my guild, who told me that the featured artist for next year's guild show is going to be, instead of an accomplished master quilter, a group of quilters: "the men of the guild." Gulp. The men of the guild total about 5, out of 300+ members, and one is 11 years old. There's Tony, who does amazing work, and two others who I don't believe are particularly active, and then there's, well, me. So, it is a hugely unexpected and intimidating opportunity to have some of my stuff shown very prominently! I'll need to work my tail off this fall.

In the meantime, let's all enjoy the last week of the summer quilting hiatis. Thanks for reading.


p.s. The best thing about Seattle was actually that I got to pay visits to Shanthala, Jenn, and Jim. Hi guys!