Quilts of the Avian World

Here's a tribute to our feathered friends in all their various forms and beauty, from the 2017 Houston International Quilt Festival .

Tickled Pink by Debra Crine, Florida 

Second-place winner in the Art-Painted Surface category,  Debra notes, "I was inspired by a photo by [art photographer] Mark Mitter.  The quilt was painted with steam-set dyes on silk habotai." ( a fabric with a soft and supple hand and a lustrous sheen).

Close-up, Tickled Pink

These subtle color variations and gently curved quilting lines give the flamingo's plumage a fascinating, highly-textured effect.

Romeo by Pamela Burke , North Carolina

Pamela remarks, "After seeing a photo of a....peacock taken by Laura Scott Dillman, I thought it would be an  interesting and fun challenge to find fabrics and techniques to interpret the photo of this majestic fowl.  My goal was to maintain transparency of the plumage and create depth in the design."

Close-up, Romeo

Pamela's techniques for this lovely work include machine applique, fused applique, and hand painting on commercial fabrics with cotton and polyester thread, Angelina fiber, and Rat tail fiber.

Whooo? by Mimi Ghauri-Young , California

Mimio explains, " I have always been fascinate by owls. When I found this image of a Northern Saw-Whet owlet, I was enchanted by his quizzical expression and inspired to make this quilt." 

Close-up,  Whooo

We really admire Mimi's excellent work in capturing the owl's realistic and very expressive face.  She used machine piecing, machine applique, and inking on commercial cotton fabrics.

Keeping Up Appearances by Jan Reed, California

Honorable Mention winner in the Pictorial Art Quilts category,  Jan writes of her original design, "As the morning sun begins to melt away the tule fog that forms overnight in the Merced National Wildlife Preserve, an ibis is revealed preening his colorful plumage."

Close-up, Keeping Up Appearances

To create this elegant work which emphasizes the feathers of this stately bird, Jan used machine applique, fused applique, painting, thread painting, and colorwashing. Her materials consisted of commercial batiks, tulle, fabric inks, and colored pencils.

Making Amends by Carol Cote, Ontario, Canada

Carol writes of her original design,  "This Atlantic Puffin, from Newfoundland, Canada, was taking a flower to its mate. The photo inspired me to create this quilt for Canada's 150th birthday. over 150 fabrics, 200 + hours of hand applique, and more than 100 hours of quilting have gone into this creation."

Close-up,  Making Amends

Carol has done a beautiful job of  creating depth and shading by her careful selection of  white, black, and gray neutral hues. Her work is all hand-appliqued, using cotton fabrics and cotton threads.

Image credits:  photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2017 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Highlights of the 2017 Houston International Quilt Festival - part 1

We just returned from the Houston International Quilt Festival.  It's an awe-inspiring event with more than 1,600 quilts on display, and over 60,000 visitors!! It's hard to describe the scale and visual impact of this event.  Just weeks earlier, the Houston convention center served as shelter for more than 10,000 people displaced by Hurricane Harvey, yet the Quilt Festival was executed flawlessly! Here are some highlights of this fantastic show.

We're continually adding fun new items at very low prices to Quilt Inspiration's E-Bay site !

In the Mood for Love by Jing Chen (Beijing, China)

Created with machine piecing and machine applique, this quilt is inspired by a classic Chinese movie called In the Mood for Love (2000). The main colors in the quilt are red and black, which reflect the tone of the film and highlight the dramatic effect. Jing Chen says,  "The protagonist and background are dealt with in different tones, showing the nostalgia."  A closeup photo of the sepia-toned film strip image is shown below.

Ready by Danny Amazonas (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)

"Ready" depicts a cat with an intense stare, ready to pounce!  It was part of a special exhibit called Freehand Patchwork by Danny Amazonas. He does stunning fabric collages using scraps and slivers of fabrics that are stitched to a background using invisible thread.

Fans of Kaffe Fassett will recognize many of these colorful fabric prints.  Danny says, "Since I'm using fabric to create my artwork, I want to maintain the beauty of the original fabric designs on each piece of fabric used. I was also inspired by hundreds of people, some of them great artists, family members, friends, and especially fellow quilters, who gave me kind words of encouragement and praise." We took many photos of this exhibit, and will show more of his work in upcoming posts!

The End of the Drought by Jan Reed (California, USA)

In the Embellished Quilts category, this small quilt captivated viewers with its beadwork representing drops of rain, some of which dangle off the bottom edge of the quilt.  Jan Reed says, "After worrying for 5 years over our severe water needs due to California's drought, imagine our wonder at finally seeing it rain... and rain... and rain.  It felt miraculous."

Jan Reed used machine applique, fusing, and hand embellishment, along with colored pencils and Neo Color 11 watercolor crayons to create this photo-inspired piece. Strands of seed beads are coiled to resemble a puddle of water inside the hand.

White Knight by Patt Blair (California, USA)

White Knight won First Place in the Painted Surface category within the World of Beauty exhibit.  Patt Blair says, "I love painting powerful animals... I had anatomy drawings for this piece for 3 years before I threw caution to the wind and improvised his mane, which I felt must be massive and majestic."

Jacuzzi Jazz by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry (Washington, USA)

The vortex in this quilt was inspired by the spiraling designs found in many fractals.  To create an eye-dazzling effect, Caryl used rainbow colors alternating with their complements, an arrangement she calls "intersecting color and value gradations."  The techniques used include machine piecing, hand dyeing, digital printing and painting with cotton fabric.

Slices of Opulence by Randa Mulford

Slices of Opulence won Best of Show in the special exhibit called  A Celebration of Color. The dazzling design was based on Tomoko Tohno's Orange Range quilt, published in the May 2008 issue of Quilter's Newsletter (free foundation piecing patterns can be downloaded here). While Tohno’s blocks had pieced centers, Randa redrafted the pattern so she could feature the radiating medallion designs and different colorways of Paula Nadelstern's beautiful (but out of print) Opulence fabric line.

Magic Towns of Mexico (Pueblos Magicos de Mexico), presented by Quilters de Mexico

Celebrating the 111 named “Magic Towns” of Mexico, more than 70 quilters worked to create this large, beautiful piece inspired by The Berne House Quilt. You can see a photo of the two quilts at the Quilters de Mexico Twitter page, @QuiltersMexico.  Quilters de Mexico representatives were on hand to discuss the upcoming 10th Quilt Expo in Mexico City in February, 2018.  It sounds like a fun show!

The richness of colors in the blocks bring to mind the unique look of these beautiful and historically-preserved cities.

Image credits:  Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration.

All creatures great and small

The squirrel weighs less than a pound, while an elephant weighs up to 15,000 pounds.  Just think of it, though:  on a quilt they can be equally impressive ! We admire the realistic detail on each of these amazing animal quilts.

It's All About Spring by Marjorie Post (Portland, Oregon)

Marjorie Post is an award-winning artist who works in fabric as well as digital art and colored pencil.  It's All about Spring was created with raw-edge machine applique using her own hand-dyed fabrics.  Wonderful texture was added with different quilting designs on the elephant's trunk, face, ears and body and body, as shown below. 

It's All About Spring by Marjorie Post

On her website, Marjorie says that she obtains inspiration from nature. In addition to creating art quilts, she designs quilt patterns for applique.  You can see her lovely floral applique patterns at her site on Craftsy; one of her most famous designs is Rose Rhapsody in Blue.

Tiptoeing into the Future, 65 x 53", by Kathryn Harmer-Fox (East London, South Africa)

Tiptoeing into the Future was designed to honor the African rhinoceros, which is struggling against extinction.  We are impressed by the hazy, almost mystical appearance of the animal as it seems to appear and disappear into the background. Kathryn says,  "I wanted to show this behemoth stepping almost tentatively forward, unsure of what lies ahead; tiptoeing into the future."

close up, Tiptoeing into the Future by Kathryn Harmer-Fox

Even close up, it is hard to discern the individual fabrics and stitches that make up this composition, as they are so well blended.  The techniques used were fiber embedment using scribble stitch, free motion machine embroidery and quilting.  For more information on techniques see Kathryn's article on Drawing with Fiber.  We previously featured Kathryn's wonderful Shattered Face quilt in a 2013 post on the Pacific International Quilt Festival.

Ancient Echoes by Jan Reed (Grass Valley, California)

This incredibly realistic iguana is placed in an intriguing setting.  Jan Reed says,  "This iguana is using his sunbathing hours to reflect on his ancestors' interaction with the past glory of the Mayan culture." There is a Mayan temple in the lower left of the gray background, and a Mayan face in the upper right, just above the iguana's back. Note the way the iguana's tail slips over the edge of the frame, providing further depth to the composition.

close up, Ancient Echoes by Jan Reed

Ancient Echoes won 2nd place in the Art-Pictorial division at the 2013 Houston International Quilt Festival.  Jan explains that over 250 pieces of fabric were used to create this image with both raw-edge applique and reverse applique techniques.  colored pens and fabric inks were used to adjust values. The quilt was also embellished with tiny iridescent beads along the iguana's spine. 

Giant Panda, 37 x 38", by Anne F. Zick and Joyce Freehill (Illinois)

The quilters say, "This quilt resulted from Rob Appell's Endangered Species class at Quilters Affair in Sisters, Oregon."  This is the first Endangered Species quilt we've seen in person, and it was impressive - and larger than we imagined.  The Panda is one of  twelve different animals in the Endangered Species patterns by Rob Appell.

close up,  Giant Panda by Anne F. Zick and Joyce Freehill

Using fusible applique, the Panda's face is created with four different shades of gray and two shades of white/off-white fabric.  The machine quilting created a texture resembling fur.  For another bear pattern in the Endangered Species collection, see Rob Appell's Polar Bear Quilt Pattern.

Desert Entertainer, 40 x 31", by Barbara McKie (Connecticut)

Barbara McKie's work is instantly recognizable for the way in which she merges digital photography with quilting to create artistic portraits in fabric.  For this quilt she used her photograph of a white-tailed antelope squirrel doing pushups on a rock. On her website, Barbara explains: "My love of surface design, photography, and computer graphics, and my travels have influenced my work to make it unique in the art quilt world."

close up, Desert Entertainer by Barbara McKie

This close up photo shows the way in which Barbara used fine thread painting to enhance the image of the squirrel in on the surface of the quilt.

Nemesis III : Elton by Cindy Henneke (Brenham, Texas)

This lighthearted quilt, created with broderie perse collage techniques and Kaffe Fassett fabrics, really made us smile.  Cindy Henneke says:  "I was inspired by my garden and, oddly, the armadillos that wreak havoc on a regular basis." (For those who don't know, armadillos are a real problem for many who live in Texas).   "The large-scale floral [prints] were the perfect medium to create something to laugh at.  This quilt is part of a series.  The more it evolved, the more it took on a happy, flamboyant personality, thus called Elton."

close up, Nemesis III : Elton by Cindy Henneke 

There was a lot of fussy cutting of motifs to make up the garden and the armadillo in Nemesis III.  On close examination, you can also see many fun and interesting details, including metallic thread on Elton's claws, fancy beading around his eye, and strings of tube beads along the spines of the leaves at the right of this photo.

Image credits:  Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2013 Pacific International Quilt Festival (Tiptoeing into the Future), 2013 Houston IQF (Ancient Echoes, It's All About Spring, Nemesis II) and the 2014 AQS - Phoenix (Giant Panda and Desert Entertainer).