PIQF 10-16-09

I find the labels almost impossible to photograph clearly, but I am not willing to retype them into a new format and transfer that to Blogger. I think you can make out every word, even if the pictures of the labels are less than adequate.

Barbara has captured the feel of 1939 very well - I can believe that this lady is off to Catalina!

The eyebrows, the lipstick, the great hat - all are appropriate to the era.
I don't find a website for Barbara and the only work of hers I have seen before was traditional.

The Mancuso shows all have a theme, this year it was, "It's the Getting There...". So all the quilts supposedly express something to do with that. Some labels seem to have very little connection to the quilt, although this one slightly connects. One odd thing I noticed this year is that there were almost no teachers/designers credited on the labels. I don't know if this is something the Mancuso brothers have decided to do or that nobody (and I find this hard to believe) acknowledged the direct connection of their work to the teacher of a workshop or the designer of the original pattern that has been used - modified or not. I don't believe quilt makers should be anonymous, nor should their teachers or the originator of the design used.

Phyllis quilt won the Best use of Color in the Wall Quilt category.

This quilt has an irregular shaped bottom, so the white that you see is not part of the quilt, but the background drape.

A closer shot of just the pelicans. You may click on the pictures for a larger view.

Pacific International Quilt Festival 10-15-09

This large quilt festival, known as PIQF, is held annually in Santa Clara, CA, which is near San Jose. I don't know how long I have been attending - maybe fifteen years. For about the last ten I have stayed with my friend Mary in San Juan Bautista, about an hour's drive south of Santa Clara, so that we could go together. We usually have one or two of Mary's friends along, but once we arrive at the show we agree on a time to meet for lunch and then split up to see the quilts at our individual pace. At lunch we decide what time we will head for home. This afternoon I was completely pooped out before I had seen very much of the show, so I waited for the others whilst sitting on a comfortable sofa in a quiet nook of the lobby. I hope I have more zip tomorrow, so with that in mind I will only post a few quilts I chose arbitrarily from the pictures I took today.

Karen has dealt with a serious illness in the past eight months, so I am happy to see one of her quilts.

The background is the curtain from which the quilt hangs. The quilt itself is just the nest hanging free from a branch. Since I am so enchanted with my "bowls" shape, with pieces cut in a similar manner, I am always interest in other artists work with the same shape. I wonder how this would look not on black, but on a wall color one would find in a residence - Navajo white, beige, yellow, etc.

Franki is a friend of several years and I am participating in a fiber postcard exchange she organized and directs - see: http://www.postmarkdart.com/. I purchased one of her Ginkgo quilts (15" square) last year at the Alliance for American Quilts online auction. It has a textured background and is very lovely.

To appreciate her excellent technique and the beauty of the materials she uses, you must see Franki's work

"in-the-fabric"

Here is a close-up that shows the intricate thread work on the leaves. I previously posted about Franki's work last year at: http://delquilts.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-piqf-quilts-10-22-08.html

More quilts from the Festival tomorrow and Saturday and.......??

Rain on I-5 10-14-09

Time for the Pacific International Quilt Festival! Which requires a drive up to Mary's in San Juan Bautista - it was unavoidable that today was the day. The first rain Southern California has had since last winter - February, maybe. When I posted last night it was already raining, but with the newer windows I couldn't hear it! Rain off and on all night and this morning, but not much wind in our neighborhood. I managed to diddle around getting ready and doing things I should have done days ago - my usual procedure for a road trip!

It rained through Pasadena and across the foothills (where the fires were so bad) along the 210 Fwy. Then I turned onto the I-5 and started up into the mountains when I hit REAL rain. But it didn't last long. In the Lexus the windshield wipers come on automatically when rain is detected - they are well trained as they came on periodically during the entire 5-1/2 hour drive!

At this point I could see the edge of the storm off to the northeast - the pavement is wet, but it is spritzing more than actually raining.

Down in the valley the clouds were low and slanting sunlight shining through the openings was quite lovely

The cotton is currently being harvested. Here is a truck loaded with one of those huge "bales" of cotton that I have shown previously lined up along the edges of the picked over cotton fields.

See: http://delquilts.blogspot.com/2007/11/driving-i-5-again-11-15-07.html

Not many cars on the road, but trucks, trucks and more trucks. Here is a row of nine. They kept pulling out to pass each other and the half dozen or so cars behind would pile up. I do think some truckers like to do this. Sort of "throwing their weight around."

Will it RAIN? 10-13-09

Clouds gathering in Southern California look as though there might be rain.

The wind whipped the trees and high velocity gusts are predicted.

Great baggy grey clouds with just a spot of sunlight shining through.

I drove to San Clemente this morning for Surfside Quilt Guild meeting and the rain really came down for awhile sometime between 10am and noon, but that was all the rain I saw today. A few little spritz on the windshield on the way home around 2pm.

I do feel sorry for the families in the burn areas, they are piling sandbags and lining up K barriers in the hope of diverting the mud and water flows from their homes. These words which appeared recently in Wordsmith's A-Word-A-Day could certainly apply this week!

Pluviophobia/Ombrophobia - Fear of rain or being rained on.

Another migratory bird - Curlew 10-12-09

When I was in Long Beach with Corky all day on Saturday I saw this long-billed Curlew in the parking lot between the back fence and Marine Stadium. The houses are twelve feet or more above the lot and across the drive to the Rowing Club, so I was too far away to take a decent picture.

But the shape plus that long down curving beak are diagnostic

He moved over to the grass, making him even further away, but he had better hunting there. The curlews live in the Arctic in the summer and move down to more temperate climes for winter - as far as Australia and Central America. But some stick around in Southern California - when I worked at Ford Electronics in Newport Beach the large sloping lawns were curlew heaven. Nobody disturbed them except on the day the mower came out and that just made the bugs easier to find. The curlews long thin beak can probe the soil or dig in sand or dip into the shallow water of a bay to find one of the many choices of food they will eat.

I ripped this professional picture off the EcoWorld site so you can see what a handsome bird this is. The population will increase unless we have a heavy winter, in which case they will just move further south. Sometime toward the end of March they will start moving back to the Arctic, though how they know when to go is a mystery to me.

Dianne Firth quilt from TCQC 10-11-09

"Red Wave" Dianne Firth 2005 44"W x 57"L (111.8cm X 144.8cm)

Cotton, polyester batting, torn-strip appliqued, machine quilting.

In the QN catalog she states: "The inspiration for this quilt came from the bulbous form and sinuous orange-red markings of a fresh supply of galangal (Alpinia galanga), a spicy vegetable root, closely related to ginger and turmeric. The quilt is also a memory of warm weather and summer holidays."

I purchased this quilt at the Quilt National 2007 opening in Athens, Ohio, and then it toured the country with the rest of the Quilt National works. Although it is difficult waiting for two years, I know that if a quilt appeals to me the only way I can add it to the Collection is to "strike while the iron is hot", as the saying goes! I'm thinking of posting a series of 'the quilts that got away' to show those that I did not decide soon enough or speak up quickly enough!

Dianne's work has always appealed to me when I have seen it in exhibits, books or magazines. There is something about the way she refines and pares down the extraneous parts of an image and leaves the clear 'bones' of it in her quilts. Other than that, I suppose one of the attractions of this quilt is the color - I do enjoy bright clear colors.

The dark stripes are actually brown, but my camera cannot take the accurate color, nor could I adjust it enough with my editing program.

It is easier to see the quilting lines on the back of the quilt.

The instructions for washing the quilt are on the labels - one on each of the four pieces.

Dianne lives in Turner, Canberra, Australia, where her work includes teaching landscape design, history and theory as head of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Canberra Australia. You can see more of her work at these websites: http://tactilequilts.com/ and http://www.ozquiltnetwork.org.au/dianne-firth.html

If you look at the work of the other quilters who belong to the tACTile group you will see quilts by Beth Miller whose "Kimberley Sunset" was the featured quilt on 09-28-09. [The ACT in capital letters stands for Australia Capital Territory - similar to our District of Columbia]

Electric boat names 10-10-09

Since I spent the day in Long Beach with Corky, we went for a walk, of course. It was a gorgeous day with a temp around 71 at 4pm. We were gone for about 35 minutes, but some of that time was Corky doing his "business" and some was of the Poodle Nanny taking pictures! It seemed that a lot of electric boats were uncovered enabling me to read their names. I believe all of these are made by Duffy, a name that has come to mean electric boat in this area. It is a great challenge for the new owners to come up with something "electric" when they name their boat, although not all the names are in that category. This first one is named so because it is a Duffy.

I believe this one once belonged to Corky's parents. When a boat changes owners the name is usually not changed because the legend has it that a new name will bring bad luck to the boat.

Nice reflection in this picture.

These electric boats don't go very fast and they aren't for ocean cruising. But there are many channels around Long Beach, allowing a lazy , quiet cruise to see the houses and boats and people along the way. They are especially popular for decorating at Christmas time and riding in the Boat Parade.