Another auction quilt new to TCQC 01-10-16

The Alliance for American Quilts held a competition titled "Animals We Love"  and auctioned the quilts online last month.  This quilt won the competition and I won the bid for it. 

 

"Giraffe Nocturne"  Nancy S. Brown - Oakland, CA 2015  15.5"W x 15"L

Nancy does exquisite hand applique and specializes in images of animals.  She made this statement about her quilt: "I love giraffes and based this quilt on a giraffe that lives at the Oakland Zoo.  Giraffes only sleep about two hours a day - usually for about five minutes at a time - so they are awake most of the night.  I thought this one might enjoy the cool evening  air and the light of a full moon." 

 

What great detail she has in the eyes. 

Those funny nostrils that giraffes have. 

Nice label with contact information.

The back has a matching 4 inch sleeve.

 

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3 more from PIQF 10-30-08

What these three quilt makers have in common is that they are all my friends. Jean and Aileyn are sisters, who I met at Asilomar some years ago and both Nancy and I are members of Beach Cities Quilters Guild.

This is a quilt with the tension and motion of a tiger. And the quilting adds to that. I like the irregular border and the "opening" at top right and lower left which add even more to the feeling that the tiger is moving.
You may have heard me mention the Calla Lily quilt that Aileyn designed in Jane Sassaman's class in 2002 - I felt that she was the most successful student at stylizing their drawing. This is another Calla Lily she did recently.The curling shape of the ironwork complements the curve of the Lily and the leaves. The stonework really looks like stonework without being 'pushy'.
Her applique and quilting are the best - the blue ribbon that hung on this quilt was for hand workmanship. Congratulations, Aileyn. Notice that she has deepened the throat of the lily with just a bit of colored pencil.

This tight closeup shows the stitching even better.

There are two problems with signs, they are sometimes hung too high for my 5' 4" body and the light reflects off either the paper or the print. So, I try to take a picture that one can read, rather than one that is straight.

Everything Nancy makes is beautifully done. She is an expert at applique, quilting, piecing, designing, etc. and her quilts are flat and squared up. I have a tiny angel she made a few years ago, but someday maybe I will have a larger quilt for the TCQC.

Click on the photo and see how tiny and even the quilting is. You can't see her applique stitches at all. A fabulous piece, Nancy.

Now that I know why some pictures won't enlarge I worked out the order beforehand when I put these on my blog. I had to make a little diagram and had to redo them twice, but finally it works. Seems safe to move them up or down, but not out of the sequence in which they were posted.

The Alliance for American Quilts auction opened today on eBay at: http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=The+Alliance+for+American+Quilts&category0=