International Quilt Exhibition 2018 (3)

Quilt art, sometimes referred to as “soft paintings,” has more in common with fine art than it does with traditional quilting. The Brigham City Museum (Utah) is presenting the 46th International Quilt Invitational Exhibit from June 16 through September 1, 2018. The exhibit features universally prized quilts by artists from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. We hope you enjoy these outstanding quilts!

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Cool Camels of Egypt, 70" x 54.5", by Barbara Barrick McKie (Connecticut)

This wonderful photorealistic quilt by featured artist, Barbara McKie, was a standout at the show. McKie and her husband visited Egypt in 2007. The background is a heiroglyphic from a temple that she saw.  The quilt features seven delightful camels; their funny expressions caught her eye, and she recorded them with her camera.

Many of the camels she saw had pompoms and tassels, so she embellished all the camels in the quilt with yarn.  Trapunto was used to make the camels stand out and to sculpt their heads.

David by Gilli Theokritoff (United Kingdom)

This outstanding mosaic quilt is adapted from Michelangelo's statue of David. Gilli used photos of the statue as her inspiration and put the image through a cross-stitch program which converted it to pixels. The quilt is 76 inches tall and is made with 300 different fabrics, cut into 13,800 3/4" squares that were appliqued to a background.   The piece is quilted with the story of David's rise and fall from grace.

It took Gilli a year to plan the design for the quilt in her head, and to collect fabric when she visited shows and quilt shops.  She even cut up some of her family's clothing.  Then she had to wait three months for her husband to build a table large enough and high enough for her to start the quilt.  The quilt was completed in three months.  David won First Place in the Large Wallhanging Category at Quilt champion UK at Sandown in 2015.

Orvieto Memories by Lisa Walson (Australia)

This quilt was started while Lisa Walton was teaching in the beautiful Italian village of Orvieto.  All the fabrics were created from white cloth using a variety of surface design techniques such as dyeing, painting, rubbing, and foiling.  The overlay motif is a copy of a semi-circular, wrought-iron frame over the door of Walton's favorite coffee shop in Orvieto.

Orvieto Memories was part of Lisa's exhibition celebrating her Jewel Pearce Patterson award for quilting teachers, displayed at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in 2011. For more information on the quilt please see Lisa Walton's website.

Mill House by R. Leslie Forbes (Canada)

R. Leslie Forbes is currently living in Western Canada in a wine- and fruit-growing region. Her family spent summers at their cottage at "Trail's End" near the town of St. George.  She and her three siblings would wander the small town savoring ice cream cones, but the area by the waterfalls and the mill was strictly off limits.  On a return trip with her sister as adults, they wanted to explore the mill.  Forbes took the picture that inspired this quilt, which was fabricated exclusively with Forbes' own hand-dyed and painted fabric.

We are fascinated with her dimensional use of translucent and metallic fibers to re-create the shimmering waterfall, shown below.

The Botanical Gardens of Balboa Park by the Bobbin Buddies of San Diego (California)

The Bobbin Buddies quilt group selected the Botanical Building in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, as their subject to celebrate the park's centennial and to coincide with the San Diego Quilt show's theme, "A Walk in the Park." To see how realistic the quilt is, compare it with this photo of the Botanical Building by Bernard Gagnon.

The quilters enlarged a photo of the building to 60 inches by 40 inches, and divided it into 24 pieces.  The pieces were shuffled and ranked as easy, medium, and difficult, then distributed equally to the group.  Each of the eight members did not know what the final product would look like and were given pieces without knowing who got what. The pieces were then expertly matched, quilted, and bound.  In the photo below you can see where 4 sections come together.

After a win in the San Diego Quilt show, the Bobbin Buddies entered the piece into the American Quilters Society's competition in Paducah, Kentucky, and won First Place in Group Quilts.  The piece was purchased by the Balboa Park Conservancy and has been on display in its Visitors Center.

Image credits:  Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration.

Highlights of the Pacific International Quilt Festival: Day 1 !

The Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) is the biggest quilt show on the West Coast of the US. We had a great time at the 25th annual show, held last week in Santa Clara, California. There were nearly 1000 quilts on display from around the globe. Here are selected highlights of this year's show!

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David, 76 x 78”, by Gilli Theokritoff (UK)

This quilt is an original design, made from approximately 14,000 small mosaic squares of printed fabric appliqued to a background grid to create the image of Michelangelo’s famous statue David.

Gilli Theokritoff says, "I have always wondered about David’s ambivalent expression and the quilting is my text that explains the history of David and his fall from grace with God." David is hand appliqued and sewing machine quilted. 

Korowai Ma, 57 x 33”, by Annie White (New Zealand)

Annie White says, "Korowai Ma (White Cloak) is a modern interpretation of a Maori cloak, which is traditionally made from finely woven muka (twisted flax fiber). In this modern take, fabric “kete” style weaving anchors a spray of fabric ‘feathers.’ "

Each ‘feather’ is individually made and some are hand-embroidered before being placed on the cloak backing.

Gathered Consciousness, 36 x 36”, by Cindy Watkins (Australia)

Gathered Consciousness was awarded a ribbon of merit from the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges (NACQJ). This original design was machine appliqued and sewing machine quilted using fabrics created by Australian aboriginal artists.

Cindy Watkins says, “The young girl in my quilt was photographed by Robyn Adams at the first revival of the Bunya Dreaming gathering in 2007. This is a celebration to maintain the tradition of the gathering of the Bunya nut. For me she represents the collective consciousness and the future of Australia. My thanks to the aboriginal artists that created the fabric that I have used in my quilt and my respect to the first people for our nation.”

Pink Bird, 50 x 40”, by Judy Coates Perez (California, USA)

Pink Bird won a blue ribbon for Best Sewing Machine Workmanship – Innovative. Judy Coates Perez says, “25 years ago I was making my first art quilts, by appliqueing and piecing commercial fabrics, now I prefer to paint all my fabric. Painting images often inspired by nature, sometimes using photos of real birds and plants as reference for a pose or shape, then altering them graphically. I simplify details, create new patterns and choose different colors to create unique stylized flora and fauna.”

Adorned Elephant, 46 x 64”, by Jane Hopkins (UK).

Jane Hopkins says that the inspiration for Adorned Elephant came from a child’s drawing book. Most of it is machine appliqued, but the hexagons are hand pieced. The fabrics used are hand dyed cottons, silks and parts of saris. The cords and tassels are machine made. The elephant is embellished with beads, sequins and crystals.

Barcelona Sunset, 80 x 80”, by Lisa Walton (Australia)

We loved the gorgeous colors in this quilt, which was inspired by the Modernista tile designs of Barcelona. Lisa Walton's hand dyed fabrics were pieced to make the quilt top. The tile patterns were quilted over the top and then painted. The tile designs were used with permission of The Pepin Press.

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2016 Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California.