9.8.12 Heartland Quilt Show

Let me begin by saying my cell phone photos will no tdo justice to the quilts Katie and I saw today at  the Heartland Quilt Show.  The colors and textures were magnificent. It's amazing to see the creativity that abounds, and the love and dedication that has gone into creating the pieces.  I received a post card invitation from my former coworker, Karen Lunn, who is happily retired and quilting up a storm.  This quilt group meets the first Saturday morning of the month.  Sometimes they just work on pieces in progress. Sometimes they have a "challenge with rules", and sometimes they have skill lessons for new techniques.  There was an entire wall of patriotic quilts...

How about this flag, made from these little rosettes?

Love these stars!

There were more traditional patterns as well.  Each quilt had a little handwritten description written on it.  For this quilt, the quilter was given a "bag full of these flowers, in different sizes".  She added to and finished the piece...

What about this more modern take on a flower pattern? Magnificent!

This was one of my favorites....an elephant piece.  The coloration was delightful, and although you can't see the detail in the photo, each white circle was quilted with a spiral pattern....

Here's another delightful children's quilt...caterpillars!  So bright and cheerful. The caterpillar faces lifted off the edge of the quilt, like a flap.  A little hard to see in my photo.

This was part of a challenge piece, in which every quilter had to use a specific blue fabric.  

Here's a Halloween quilt, made by my friend Brenda.  These are Halloween fabrics, and there were machine quilted cats around the border of the quilt.

Katie joined me for the quilt viewing, and we also ran into our good friend Joanna.The quilt pictured in the upper left of the photo had the Robert Louis Stevenson poem about "the swing". The texture in the tree bark, grass, and tree leaves, not to mention the swing itself, were amazing. 

Finally, I loved this quilt.  The woman made this in memory of her husband, and the stars are from the fabric of his shirts.  This really spoke to me, thinking of the nice shirts my mom always bought for dad. 

There were easily a couple hundred pieces to look at.  I purchased raffle tickets for a quilt they are raffling off.  It would be delightful to win! Katie and I signed in as guests number 103 and 104, so our chances of winning the queen sized quilt might be good.  The quilt show runs all weekend though. The ladies only do the show every other year, so we have a long time to wait. It was a delightful, quiet activity today that fed my soul.  You cannot help but be inspired when you look at the talent, skill, and devotion that goes into these pieces.  There were hand embroidered blocks, blocks with Psalms to comfort someone who was critically ill, and modern, crazy pieces.  Quite simply, amazing work.