Monday, March 10, 2014

Dallas Quilt Show

The Dallas Quilt Show was this past weekend.  We went on Friday with friends and returned on Saturday.  We never seem to see it all in one day. This year's theme was modern quilts. I am not a real fan of modern quilts, but there were some very pretty quilts there. They had over 400 quilts and garments entered in the judge to show, 150 vendors, and numerous beautiful special exhibits on display.

I have to admit I was not overly enthused at the show this year. It seemed to be smaller and had less fabric dealers. There were a lot of vendors that were selling crystals, buttons, beads and jewelry. There was a book vendor and several notions venders and of course your usual sewing machine vendors.  But all in all only about 10 booths had fabric.

I was very cautious with my money and only bought a few things. I had taken one of my Martelli cutters with me because it was broken. For a nominal fee they let me upgrade to the newer more ergonomic one and then I bought blades for the 45 and 60 mm cutters. I also bought a charm pack from Northcott called Artisan Spirit Shimmer. it has beautiful rich colors with the glitter to them that is a like glitter on the fabric it's made into it. There were 63 different pieces of fabric in it for $15.

Then on Saturday I bought a couple of big ticket items. Several years ago I had bought a white cutting mat to go on top of my craft table.  I was very disappointed in the quality of the product because no matter what cutter I used with brand-new blades they skipped and you had to cut repeatedly to get a clean cut and by then it wasn't a clean cut. So this year there was a company selling cutting mats that are made out of recycled PVC. They are white and very flexible and starting so once again I'm trying a new cutting mat although it won't be here until they can ship it.  The company was called "Cut it Out! Quilting Supplies" and it's located in my hometown of Plano, Texas. My husband bought me an anniversary birthday gift of a Silhouette Cameo. This is a fancy cutting tool that you can cut fabric with and it works off of your PC.  I've loaded the software and played with it a little but have not cut anything yet.



Now onto the quilts that's what most of us care about. I'm going to start out with the under 17 category.


 This one was sweet. I am sure his family was very proud.

 this one didn't say how old the girl was. I like the colors and the simple design. She did a very good job


 while we were there the young lady that made this quilt was there with her whole family and was posing for pictures .She looked to be about 12 or 13 . She did a marvelous job.

There were many other kids quilts but these three just jumped out at me.  

The next quilt was a non-judged quilt. I have large oak trees in my front yard so this one struck a chord with what I could do with those acorns.
I did not get a picture of the placard that went with this one it was called tree runner. The acron are hung little wires that were hung on the quilt






 
This was a very interesting quilt. the quilting was really fascinating on it. Several of us debated about the little squiggles. We were calling them fortune cookies, macaroni, and worms.



 this is a very simple pieced quilt  but it was the quilting that made the whole piece come together..

 I took a picture of the snake's head.. His body wound all the way down the length of the quilt.


This was one of the dragonflies.  They were very subtle.


I did not get the placard on this one either looking at the program I think it is Modern Grandma. I saw another one very similar to this but in miniature and that's the one I would like to do. The quilting on this one is uneven straight lines through the quilt.  Some were a quarter-inch apart and up to an inch apart, maybe an inch and a half. Very simple  but elegant.

That's about half of the pictures that I took. To prevent overload I will save the rest for Wednesday.

3 comments:

  1. I liked the hexie quilt and the house the best. I'm not much into modern quilts, either. Hope you like your new cutting mat.

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  2. I really like that brights-on-black that the one youth made! The acorn running is super interesting, too, as is the feather quilting on the hexie one. That's a quilt I've thought about making for my science-y daughter.

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  3. My friends that went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival said they were disappointed this year as well. I hope it's not the start of a trend. The quilting on the hexie quilt is just beautiful. When I go to shows now, I find myself spending a lot more time looking at the quilting rather than the design. It can really add to the overall look of the quilt. I hope your new cutting mat works out for you!

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