Paducah - Day 1

Here I am in Paducah, Kentucky at the American Quilter's Society annual show. It was a long drive up from Marietta, GA - about 7 hours. We spent all day yesterday looking at quilts in the main exhibit areas and we haven't see all of the quilts yet. We did spend some of our time visiting vendors as the exibit quilts and vendors are paired together in the different exhibit areas. I took lots of pictures of my favorite quilts and here are some of them.

The first paragraph after each photo describes the quilt and gives a statement by the artist. The second paragraph gives my thoughts about the quilt and why I took the picture.

The Jennings Homestead (69" x 45") – Made by the Milwaukee Art Quilters, in gratitude to Paul and Teresa Jennings for providing the space to meet, the 26 art quilters made a slice quilt of the Jennings Victorian home. Longarm quilted by Terry Kirchner.

I like the quilt because of the construction It is made of 24 different squares, each square having a slice of the total picture and using colors of the quilters choice. When stitched together there is an intriguing dimensional quality to the finished piece as the color varies from slice to slice. JA

Cross Country Skiing (52" x 59") – by Paulette Landers, Camp Nelson, CA. "Cross country skiing in Sequoia National Monument offers a serenity like no place else. Among the tall cedars and ponderosa pines nature speaks to the soul." Quilted on hand-dyed fabric on a home sewing machine.

I took this picture for my sister, Janet Houts who lives in Sun Valley, ID. She often says she is going to do some winter scenes of the mountains that surround her home and I hope this inspires her to go ahead and just do it! This quilt also has a variety of fabrics sewn in large patches in the background making the entire piece more interesting than it would be if the snow was shown as a large, plain white area. JA

White Tulips (47" x 39") by Emily Parsons, St. Charles Illinois. "The unlimited color of flowers and textures in the leaves never cease to amaze me."

This is another quilt that has a pieced background. Emily also used a variety of fabrics in the applique to more accurately represent the myriad of colors that are present in nature. One of my favorite ways to choose a color palette for a new quilt is to take close-up photographs of nature as Mother Nature puts colors together in a way that I would never think to be possible and yet they work in harmony and beauty. JA