Inspiration at World of Quilts

Last weekend, my FANE group exhibited our "Outside the Box" fiber art cubes at the Northern Star Quilter's Guild's annual "World of Quilts" show.   As you can tell from the photo, the cube display was striking to see!  We used foam core stands to support the boxes, and the cubes were different sizes, as well as being a totally unique expression of the artist(s) that created them.   Some people did all 5 faces of the cube themselves, while others collaborated to share a cube.  You can see my spring-themed pieces right in the center.  It was fun to walk among them and admire each other's creations as well as to hear the comments of the show visitors.  It was a fun project, and since I only basted my pieces together, I can easily take them apart and have 4 or 5 separate works to display.

Even though I've been going to this show nearly every year for the past 5 or more years, I'm always blown away by the creativity and talent that is so obvious in this guild.  Sometimes taking a close look at some of the more traditional quilts can be so inspiring.  The methods or techniques might be traditional, but the effect is still stunning.  

Looking over this beautiful quilt below, I couldn't find two blocks the same.  How impressive is that! I loved the variety and the homey-ness of the earth-tone colors.  It's just a lovely example of what makes quilting such a unique art form.

Below is another more traditional quilt that I just loved for it's simplicity, earthy colors, and unique feel.  It was very simply done, with large blocks and simple piecing, but I loved the combination of plaids mixed with blocks that had just one pieced strip.  The quilting was done with large stitches in a thick thread, which added to the texture and homey feel.  I just loved it!

This one below won an award.  What was so striking about it were the large blocks with sea creatures hand-stitched in thick white thread on a blue background.

Here is a close-up:

I just love the contrast and texture achieved with this simple yet stunning technique!

Donna Chambers (a FANE member) created these next two pieces.  The first one, "Marvelous Martha," won the "best in show" ribbon (Donna won it last year as well!).  She is one talented lady and just had her own show at Etui Fiber Arts in Larchmont, NY.

Here is another example of some of her gorgeous work.  In this one, she uses one of her favorite techniques, fabric mosaic.  Yes, all those little squares and rectangles are separate pieces of fabric that are fused, then stitched, in place.  She uses a product called "texture magic" to get the nubbly texture shown on the peacock's body.

I loved this one below as well, because it was just so different from anything else there, so modern and precise, a cityscape and reflection, all created with skinny strips in various lengths.  

Here is a detail, below:

Just amazing!

Finally, here is some inspiration on how to use photos and stitching together to get a beautiful effect.  This is a photo that was printed on fabric, then stitched over to get all that lovely texture.

And last but not least, there was a special exhibit of some pieces from Paula Nadelstern's kaleidoscope quilt collection.  I only took this one photo below, but there were many of her very impressive pieces there.  I liked the snowflake quilt in particular, partly because of the clever way of using her kaleidoscope technique to create the six-sided symmetry of a snowflake, and partly because of the striking contrast between the dark blue background and light blue and white snowflakes.

Wow, with all this inspiration, I wonder what my next project should be!  (Although, honestly, after working so hard to get those five spring pieces done for my cube, I think I need to take a little break!)