Friday, April 22, 2011

MQX East 2011, Providence, Rhode Island

I have been jotting around a lot lately and last weekend was no exception.  I was fortunate to be able to get away Thursday night and DH and I toke the 3 hr drive to Providence, Rhode Island.  It was a gorgeous day, so the drive was a pretty one.  I had signed up for a class with Cathy Higgins (hint, hint...  "What's Brewing?") on designing quilts from photos and one with Gina Perkins on creating great quilting designs.  Gina had a family emergency come up, so I was fortunate to have Karen McTavish step in and teach the class.  I have always wanted to take a class with Karen, so I wasn't too upset :-).  But more on my classes another time.  Today's post will be about the quilts.  Boy was I blessed...  the show was a gem!  I have so many pics I am not sure all will make it into the post, but here goes.

Let's start out with the quilt by a friend of mine, Teri.  Her quilt "Moon Over Manhattan" won a Teacher's Award.  This quilt was also used as cover art for a rock group out of England.


Next is a quilt of another friend of mine from Facebook, Pat Delaney.  Pat's quilt "Inspiration From Nature's Art" was quite striking.  It is always nice to see quilts made by friends hanging in shows.  I had never met Pat in person before, that is until MQX.  She and I both tried out the APQS Millennium long arm machine.  Yes, I am still dreaming :-).  But for the time being Pat does all her quilting on her domestic machine, like me.
 


Here is a close-up of the quilting.   Pat and I were both in the quilting lecture by Karen McTavish.  Not sure she needs it.


There were a couple of quilts by Dustin Farrell that really impressed me.  His quilts were so original and so full of detail and of course, I loved the color in "Garden Orbes".

Look at those flying geese...  they are all 3D...  yes!!


Dustin did something I have seen very few quilters do.  Once he had all his background quilting in using black thread on black fabric, yellow on yellow, blue on blue, etc..., he went in and added accent quilting using silver and gold thread.  It looked like Glide poly, but I can not be sure.


Look at the level of detail in this piece.  He has buttons and gems attached by crocheting them on with cotton thread circles.

And if you think that was good, look at this piece.  It is done almost entirely with thread.  Talk about a lot of thread!!  Take a look at "Whitetail Morning"....


Take a close look....  let me know if you can see any fabric that isn't covered in thread.  I dare you to find an area, bigger than an inch that isn't covered :-).


The level of detail is amazing.  This deer looks so peaceful, just sitting there, taking in the sights...



Even the birdies in the tree are just chilling out, enjoying the morning air.


Well that's all for now.  I have about 40 more pictures, so I will post more over the next week. 

The kids are coming home for Easter weekend and then I am off to Peru and Columbia for work on Monday, so I will have plenty of plane and hotel time to do some posting.

Cheers!

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