Vermont Quilt Show..#1

I got back from a whirlwind weekend trip to upstate Vermont last night.  I made the 4-1/2 hour drive with my mom and daughter to see the VT Quilt Festival.  It's the oldest (and largest?) quilt show in New England.  Though known for favoring more traditional designs, it had a wide selection of everything to see - modern and hand quilting alike.  The quilts I am posting today represent a selection of what was there, but the next post will feature some of the complete whimsy that I saw.  

This is Diane Craft's Life at Round Pond.  I like the log cabin quilts even if I probably don't possess the patience to boringly piece all the logs.  The applique around it is fun (see next pic)

 She appliqued all kinds of creatures from deer to fox to other birds, and lots of tiny leaves/vines.

This is appealing to see.  Larger applique, lots of different colors.  It's called Phone Home by Marjorie Lydecker.  She claims that one of the appliques looks like ET.  Dunno about that!

 Up close, "Jewel in the Crown" by Dawn Hays shines because I think it is made largely of silk.

Do you remember last winter when I quilted 2 of these miniatures?...  This one is Betty Chouinard's, and it took a blue ribbon!  Robyn's quilt was there as well, but I royally blurred the picture.  It was fun to see both of them (and their quilts) at the show yesterday.  The piecing is near perfect.

 This is a Judy Niemeyer creation, Starburst, by Kathie Alyce and Pat Boyle.  Catchy design, nice colors, good quilting - I just failed to get any closeups.

 Timna Tar often makes quilts with nice color variations, and this is no exception.  It's fun, and colorful.

 And so is this one.

 Not really a big fan o f modern quilts, but the colors worked here.  It's interesting in a minimalist kind of way.  Colleen Kole claims it is inspired by seeing VT barn rooflines from the sky.

This quilt looked nice.  It's called Banff Star by Bethany Morelli. It's the same general idea of the quilt I entered in this quilt, just considerably tamer. She took the home machine quilting ribbon.

Love, love, love this.  The color and whimsy are perfect.  Something small and colorful is on my bucket list for someday.  It's made by Ann Feitelson and called Leaves Fall.

Winter Frost by Thea Kazmer features very soft array of blues.

As I mentioned, this show is relatively conservative.  I think that the judges definitely preferred the conservative quilts.  Nobody that enters quilt shows wants to think that there is a strong subjective force in the judging room, but it's evident.  The more whimsical and bolder colored quilts, though very eye-pleasing, had to be truly exceptional to get blue ribbons.  Many versions of Baltimore album quilt were there.  It's definitely a labor of love to applique all of that!

This was probably my favorite quilt there.  I may be slightly biased towards the machine quilted works, but Marilyn Badger never disappoints.  SuperStar appears to be all silk, and has amazing quilting.  The best piecing and best longarm quilting awards verify her tremendous abilities.

Just have a look at how she overlay quilts...She ignores the piecing at times and boldly just quilts a different pattern, and it works beautifully.  This quilt is all in metallics of several shades.

Here's the Best of Show.  It's Christine Wickert's Sampling the Silken Road.  The piece is hand quilted, and is indeed very pretty.  She has long pipette beads around the binding, and on the quilt (at first we thought they were pins...)  I can't believe how she appliqued all the silk so well.