Saturday, June 23, 2012

Common Threads Quilt Show ~ Wichita Kansas

Along with my mom, I attended the Common Threads Quilt Show in Wichita KS this morning.  Featuring over 500 quilts, it is the biggest quilt show that I have ever attended.  I am glad it wasn't any bigger.  As much as I enjoy looking quilts, I found that I reached a point where I just couldn't take any more in.  Quilt saturation?  Who would have thought it?

When I got home and surveyed the pictures I'd taken, I tried to decide what drew me to some quilts more than others.  I'm very partial to certain colors, but that's far from the whole story.  So much is in the design ~ both of the quilt pattern and the quilting.

Glad some quilters somewhere have been busy.  Despite my best intentions, I haven't sat down at my sewing machine yet.  So over the next few days, I'm going to share some of the quilty eye candy, and be glad I have something to report on my quilting blog.

First Storm at Sea.  Aptly named, the "motion" of the design never ceases to intrigue me. I've liked it in every color combination in which I've seen it done.   

Hard to see in the overall picture, the quilter used a lot of circular quilting which only served to accentuation the sense of movement.



I took the next group of pictures with Shay at Quilting in My Pyjamas in mind, since I know she has been working on a selvage quilt.  (I've been so long absent, she may have finished it by now.)  My apologies that the picture of the overall quilt is rather blurry.  There was a very slight breeze that kept the quilts subtly in motion.


Fortunately, the close-ups below do the quilt justice.  Isn't the quilting fantastic?




I'm not much for quilts in subdued tones and old-fashioned colors, but the design and quilting in this piece fascinated me.  This quilt is so subdued that you might be liable to think that the lighting at the show was bad, or something was wrong with my camera.  But no, these are the actual colors in the quilt.



Stay-tuned!  There are more quilts to come.

6 comments:

  1. I, too, am enamored of Storm At Sea quilts. The quilting on that one is fantastic, adding to the impression of a rolling sea. Love the closeup of the selvage quilt too. Gives me ideas if/when I ever get around to quilting hubcap/halo quilt, which is pieced in the same shapes. I agree on the last one as well, the quilting on this traditional quilt is beautiful. I think it really draws you in to look closer at the quilt, and then you appreciate all the other technical aspects of the traditional style. Thanks for sharing these!

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  2. I was at a show yesterday as well. I have to admit I found a lot of them quite dull, with one or two extraordinary ones I will eventually blog about. So much of the fabric and the stalls that were there selling were stuck in the past. Not many were looking to stretch the boundaries and that seemed so confining to me.

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  3. Oh my goodness ! The spider web strings are fabulous !!!!!

    So much eye candy in this post.

    Im still working on that project by the way ...it's never ending.

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  4. that last quilt is amazing. love it.
    and wow! the quilting on the spider web quilt is really great.

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  5. Admittedly, you had me at Wichita (my hometown), but Wow! Those quilts are fabulous. 500 would be overwhelming to view. The first one is my favorite. I could stare at that all day and still never tire of looking at it. Thanks for sharing! Happy Sunday! :)

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  6. Lovely pictures! Thanks for sharing them and off course your stories/insights. The quilting on them all are fantastic.

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Your comments brighten my day. :-)