Wednesday: quilt show

This afternoon I went to the big quilt show in Grand Rapids.  I went last year and didn't have enough time before I had to leave; this time I had plenty of time.  I was trying to figure out why...and I think there are two main reasons.  I didn't have as many things that I was looking to buy, so I didn't really spend much time in the vendor area.  I felt as though there were a lot of art/applique quilts, and while they are amazing they just don't interest me that much.

I did feel as though some of the quilts I've made were of similar quality to the ones shown...I always think that I should enter, but never have a quilt ready at the right time that isn't waiting to go somewhere else.  One of these years I probably will though, just to see if I even get in.

There was a lot of matchstick/straight line quilting in the modern quilts, and that surprised me a bit.  It actually made it a little boring.  There was some amazing quilting in the quilts as a whole...my ability is quite a ways away from many of those quilts.  I did notice that many quilts had microquilting (very dense) quilting so that other areas seemed to puff up in comparison.  I really liked it, and always have, but haven't done it much.  That's something I would like to do more.

I also enjoyed looking at the challenge pieces - challenge pieces are where quilters in a group all make a small quilt based on a theme.  They are (usually) not judged, but I find it so interesting how many people can take one or two sentences and come up with such different quilts.  I am actually working on a challenge piece at the moment, and since this post has no other pictures I'll show you were I was at the beginning of the month.  It has since then doubled in size and quilting just started this evening.