Quilt Show and Tell

On Saturday at the retreat, we had a bit of show and tell and I thought I'd share with you some of the photos I took. There were a lot of stunning quilts and some less than stunning photography, so what's here isn't nearly all of what was shown. Another problem the photographer (me!) ran into was quilts being held up at such odd angles because of the disparate heights of the quilt holders, that some of those photos just didn't make the cut.

The first pattern Verna designed that really brought her a lot of attention and is still a top seller today is Vintage Valentines. Here's one of the quilts made from that pattern:

According to Verna, she was teaching at Thimblecreek when she came up with a vague idea for Vintage Valentines and asked some of her drop in students if they'd be interested in joining her for a block of the month quilt. The catch was that she didn't really know what it was going to look like or how much fabric everyone would need. Her students had such an appreciation of her abilities that they all joined in. Eventually that quilt turned into the Vintage Valentines pattern.

When I began quilting, back around 1999, Thimblecreek was located in Walnut Creek and was a larger store than it is today. Part of the store was devoted to gift items and the rest contained so much fabric it didn't even fit on their many, many rows of shelves. There was a huge variety of styles, patterns, and fabric--definitely something for everyone! My quilt friends and I would make the treck to Walnut Creek--about an hour or so away--a couple times a year. It was fairly normal for us to shop for an hour and make our purchases, walk down the row of shops to the Gourmet Burrito restaurant for lunch, and then return to Thimblecreek to buy all the things we passed up the first time but had been thinking about throughout lunch.

Out of that Thimblecreek environment came a TON of talented designers, including Verna Mosquera (The Vintage Spool), Anne Sutton (Bunny Hill), and Joanna Figueroa (Fig Tree). I'm sure there were more--I just can't think of them right now.

So, anyway . . . back to show and tell.

Several quilters brought "first applique quilts" with them to share. I believe this was one of them.

Although you can't really see it in this photo, this quilt was machine appliqued, and the quilter who made it did a terrific job. Each piece is stitched down with a small machine satin stitch.

Another beauty! The woman on the left holding the quilt demonstrated the starch method of applique. She does work for Verna, which probably tells you she's a darn good appliquer!

The next two quilts fall into the art quilt category. The first one was done, I believe, in a class with Mary Lou Weidman. (Click on her name to check out her website and designs if you're not familiar with her.) Mary Lou specializes in quilts that tell the quilter's story. I didn't hear the explanation of the cow quilt but it has something to do with a hot cow and "Cowliente" (from the word "caliente").

I read somewhere about this chair quilt design--I kind of think it was a class offered at Sisters but I might be wrong. It seems to me that from what I read, the quilter takes the basic chair pattern and designs a quilt that's personal to her--her life story. This chair quilt was pretty cool. They are a bit cut off in my photo, but there are broiderie perse African animals in the border/corner areas and tropical flowers everywhere.

What do you think YOUR chair would look like?

The woman who made the chair quilt brought several others--a photographic quilt depicting the face of a child of a coworker was especially sweet, but I didn't get a photo of it--she was the first quilter to show her things and I wasn't quite prepared.

Are you interested in attending one of Verna's retreats? If so, you might be in luck: Registration for her Halloween retreat opens on July 18th, the date of this post. Just click HERE to read about the retreat and register. Good luck!