Las Vegas Quilt Show -- March 4-6, 2011 (Part 1)

This show was held in Henderson NV the first weekend of March. I spent three days in the booth of Downtown Sewing Machine Company sewing on one of the top of the line Pfaff machines, talking to people about the cabinets made by Unique Sewing Furniture that were displayed in the booth and, in general, hanging out and having fun! However, I couldn't resist getting out of my booth once in a while to look at the quilts:

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you know that if only one person's name follows the quilt name, it was made and quilted by the same person; otherwise, I identify all people who worked on the quilt that are included on the description card. Thoughts enclosed within quotation marks are also from the description card and I usually refer to those as the artist's statement.


You know I had to like this one! "Butterfly Garden" by Patty Miller; Patty stated that it was her "take along" project when visiting her daughter and family in Tucson.

Because of the cross-stitched blocks, this quilt was entered in the "Mixed Techniques" category. I think that the striped sashings (you can just see a little bit at the far left in the bottom photo) took this quilt from a simple setting to traditional with a twist.

"Celebrate!" by Carol Bruce took first place in the "Dimensional/Mixed Media/Collage" category. The quilts were made using "fusible applique, thread painting, beading, hot fix stones and a touch of fabric paint".

"Spirit Star" by Karen Garth; design source, Pineapple Stars by Sharon Rexroad. "I made this quilt for an ugly fabric challenge. I fussy cut the shibori-style 'ugly fabric' to make the starpoints, and used OESD's "Spirit Songs' designs for the setting blocks."

Had to get a couple closeups....

"Shattered Memories - Shattered Lives - The Tragedy of Alzheimer's Disease" is an original design by Ann Louise Pugh. This piece was one of those chosen to travel with Ami Simms' Alzheimers exhibit. The picture is nothing like seeing this piece "for reals"....


"Kaleidoscope for Sugar Bear" by Anthony Ratola and quilted by Tony Ratola; design source was stated as "Sky Dancer".










I really liked the bright colors and thought the quilting was very interesting. It wasn't as heavy as a lot of the quilting you see in shows now and the quilting design was very effective in bringing out the piecing.

How could I not love the Halloween quilt? It's called "Girls Night Out"; the top was made by Rebecca Rowley and it was quilted by Di Chipman. This was a personal round robin at friendship stars group. Rebecca started with the Halloween print and each month added the required quilt task. So I guess this differs from the round robins that I am familiar with in which the quilt top travels from person to person while adding borders. This is very cool!

And some closeups of the batty fabrics and the bats quilted in one of the borders....

These are about half of the pictures on my camera card from this show -- my next post will have the other half!