Sunday, June 23, 2013

A few quilts from Sandown


Alex and I popped over the National Quilt Championships at Sandown today - it's only about 15 minutes from us (the girls were busy elsewhere, though).  It's not a large show, but it was enjoyable (partly because it's not a large show - it could be bigger and still enjoyable, but some of the really big ones just hurt my brain after a while). There were several exhibits of quilts by a single artist, in addition to the ones in the general judging categories and the challenges. I haven't taken many photos, partly because I never seem to actually USE any of the photos of quilts I take, even for inspiration, and partly because I don't like to blog lots of photos of other people's quilts, especially when I'm not sure I can keep track of who made which one.   But here are a few where I do know who the artist is, so I feel ok showing them.  This first piece is by Annette Morgan, whose work I really like. Funny thing - I saw this from across the room and was immediately drawn to it - when I saw the name on the label, I thought well, at least my taste is consistent!  The quilt you can see a sliver of to the right of the photo is hers as well - the one to the left, I think not, though it's in similar colours. 



These are both detail shots from the quilt above - I just really like the squares and rectangles in different sizes, and the way they are quilted - in addition ot the colours. This quilt is both geometric and quite random at the same time, which I like.   Her work is wonderful - if you aren't familiar with her, do go check her out. 


Ferret, a longarm quilter who does amazing work, had an exhibition of some of her quilts (quite a few, though not one of my favourites - her cows!) there - I've picked out just one to show, although I like many of them. This one (Phoenix Rising) is a good example of one of the things I like about her work - from a distance, this is a lovely quilt of a Phoenix with lots of interesting colour gradation, etc. But it's up close where the quilt really begins to amaze, I think - have a look at the quilting detail in the photo below...


all around the Phoenix, there are red flames quilted, and further out, black quilted onto black.  And the quilting on the bird itself is amazing. The photos on her own website show the quilting even better - do go have a look!


This is a detail of a quilt by Lesley Brankin, who I've known for many years (since before Alex was born) - we were members of a birthday block swap together a long time ago.  The members of this group stayed in touch for quite a long time and some of us are still good friends to this day. I haven't seen Lesley in a while, but I really enjoyed seeing her piece at Sandown - it's really lovely. 



And this is a quilt which I just liked - I took about 5 more pictures of quilts I just liked, but this is the only one where I remembered to also take a photo of the blurb, so I'd know who the artist was.  The quilt is called Dance, and is by Rebecca Handyside. As far as I can tell, she doesn't blog or have a website, but she's made a nice quilt - I enjoyed looking at it!

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