PIQF #17 The last post of PIQF quilts. 10-31-09

This is a very long post for me and I'm not sure I can stop posting pictures from PIQF '09 - I have images of some really wonderful quilts that I haven't shared. Maybe later in November when my brain and my life dry up and I have nothing else to talk about!

"Spontaneous occurrences" sounds like what I would like to have in my quilt making. But all those decades of traditional quilts just keep me UNspontaneous. This quilt makes me yearn to try for it again.

To me this looks like many colorful images shattered into many different shapes and then reassembled. Such fabulous color. And all the little refractions make the sparkle.


What a great combination of fabrics of all kinds. Surely the blue with the white "fingerprints" is an original of the artist - painted? discharged? maybe even screened?

Glowing red - fire? blood? sunset? Really a great quilt that would take a lifetime to discover every detail.

My good friend Mary submitted her 50 word essay about this quilt, but the powers behind the exhibit didn't print it for the viewers. As they didn't quite a few other artists' remarks. I am still wondering why. Some quilts transcend themselves when the viewer knows just a bit more about them and why they were made.

"Oliver is a wild caught Blue and Gold Macaw that was imported through Florida around 1971.
After the owner died Oliver ended up at the Peninsula Humane Society where Mary and her two grandgirls went to see him. He was in terrible shape, but the grandgirls and Mary's daughter thought he could be nursed back to health and they took him home in July 2004." He is now a healthy, talkative bird and quite beautiful, so Mary decided that a quilt was in order. She started it in Susan Carlson's class at Asilomar last spring. The wonderful realistic face with the thin black lines was created using that black and white spring onion fabric of a few years ago.

The fantastic machine quilting, including around each of the loose feathers, was done by Sharon Winters who sometimes teaches at Back Porch Fabric Shop in Pacific Grove.

There were a lot of painted quilts or quilts with some painting this year. The painting on this one is very effective. There is a lot of depth looking out over the grey ocean.

The children are nicely represented against the water.

I love the story behind this quilt, especially with the handwritten correction at the bottom of the label. After nine years work what an insult to have that glaring mistake for everyone to read.

The blue ribbon is for Best Handwork in the Traditional category. Even with my pink prejudice I think this is a sensational quilt.

And just look at the background quilting - each hanging square has a perfect little puff across the center, showing how even the stitches and the tension are. Amazing!