Lowell Quilt Show, Part 1

Today I had the distinct pleasure of going to the Lowell Quilt Festival in Lowell, MA. Kids stayed home with Daddy. I didn't send a quilt here. In fact, I didn't really think much of it until a client asked me to quilt a top for her in May, and she was sending it to the show. After looking into the show a little bit, I quickly realized it attracted the works of good quilters. After attending the show, I am here to tell you that this may be a small show, but it was an awesome display of talent. I took a number of pictures, but will start with the quilt that I quilted for Sandy...It's around 83" square, and took (applause!!!) 3rd place in the bed quilt division! This is not based on a judges score, but rather is 3rd best in the category. Kudos to her. She's a mechanical piecer, very neat and precise. Quilts I do for her are reliably flat, square and always fun to stitch. This was no exception. I got to "go to town" here, and she has a lovely yellow ribbon to remember this 1st show experience. More pictures...
The picture is fuzzy. Despite this auditorium being lovely for the quilts, the lighting is horrendous. The quilt's name is "Beth I hear you calling". She's used the heavily printed fabrics brilliantly, with black as a cohesive accent. I was able to create secondary quilting designs amidst her stars and piecing. I really love the square bands of pebbles.

There are plenty of feathers to keep with the very romantic feel of the fabrics. But I also like to throw in the juxtiposition of straight-line beadboarding and curved cross-hatching to break up the flowy feathers. The inner red border took the proverbial forever, with the pebbles outlining the egg-dart motifs. Simple and classic, with a twist. The end result was a lovely quilt. Did I say how proud I am of her? Wow. For the curious ones...this is all Superior So Fine thread and memory has failed me as to whether it has an additional poly batt on top of the usual 80/20 Hobbs. Gosh, my memory is goig, but I do think I did add the additional batting to show off the quilting.

Want a few more pictures...

This is Janet-Lee Santeusanio's Rosebud quilt. It's simple, classic piecing, and typically Janet-Lee lovely quilting. For those of you that don't know, she is the longarming coordinator of MQX. How does she have the time to quilt?? Her quilt took Honorable mention, after Sandy's.

This Lion quilt is incredible. Up close, it's hard to see the design. From 10 feet away, it's awesome. "El Jefe" by Grace Errea.

"Moonlit Sky" by Jenny Boucher is adorned with an absolute ton of crystals. I needed sun glasses to look at it it twinkled so much. The quilting looked oddly familiar when I first saw it. Then I realized it was done by Judi Madsen (aka Green Fairy). I love seeing her quilting, but she hasn't been showing much of it lately on account of other projects.

I've not photographed the quilt number of the next one. It's a gorgeous combination of blues you might not instinctively use together, but yet go together wonderfully.

And a closeup of the block that she did a simple kaleidoscope block of (also the border fabric).

This next one is all hand quilted and has amazing color gradations. "A Peruvian Tapestry: Women of the Andes" is by Betty Taylor.

No show would be complete without a Baltimore album quilt. This is massive applique with lots of hand quilting "And DAR Visits Rhode Island" by Brenda Devine, earning a 3rd place ribbon. Hard to believe.

Oops, no quilt credits...sorry. It's lovely!

This is by Louisa Smith (of Strips-n-Curves). The colors are lovely...lots of pieces. "Painted Leaves"

This is only a small part of this quilt, and it was hand quilted!

"The Tsar's Decree" by Megan Farcas. It has lovely movement and twinkled.

That's all for now. In the next few days, there will be lots of pictures of the winner's circle quilts and the ones I have not shown yet. Top winners were Amazing, and make me drool.