The 2019 Pacific International Quilt Festival is open this weekend in the Santa Clara Convention Center. Yesterday I went to see it, for the second year in a row. Knowing what to expect this time, I was a little less overwhelmed than I was last year, but my back was still complaining towards the end of my visit…

So many beautiful quilts, from all around the world… Visiting a quilt show is truly inspiring! I came home wanting to run to my sewing room and lock myself in, but with the million half-started projects I already have, that’s probably not the best idea… So instead, I thought I’d share my favorite picks with you. Choosing wasn’t easy, with all the gorgeous works all around, and of course my picks are very subjective. But here are some of the quilts I personally liked best.

Animal Quilts

Technicolor Dream Parrot by Roxanne Nelson from Canada is a color extravaganza:

Roxanne loves the bright colors of the Red Lored Amazon Parrot, and really let them shine in this quilt! She was inspired by the collage quilts of Susan Carlson, but applied some of her own layering techniques, too.

The Elephant in the Room by California artist Sandra Mollon is also a collage masterpiece:

I enjoyed the combination of monochrome and color:

If we’re talking elephants, I also liked Indigo Elephants by Andrea Schwenk from Germany:

Andrea dyed the fabrics herself from indigo she grew in her garden. I loved how she incorporated doilies into the quilt to give some poetic texture:

Missouri quilter Joann Webb’s Espalier is a monumental king-size quilt that couldn’t quite fit into my lens:

It was impressive in its detail, and also because of the fact that it was pieced, appliqued and quilted entirely by hand!

Man-made Landscape Quilts

This show had a few man-made landscape quilts that caught my eye. This is Country Road, by Japanese artist Masumi Kako:

From Germany, Petra Van Den Daele sent Reflecting About Life:

Her quilt aims to show how light and darkness intermingle:

Colorado quilter Pat Sprague’s Bisbee is made after photographs of Bisbee, Arizona:

California artist Kath McCormick’s quilt Puzzled Houses/The Loss of Affordable Housing (quilted by Cindy Jo Willey) has a whimsical look that appealed to me, even though it represents the very serious housing problem now facing parts of California:

Natural Landscape Quilts

When I saw Ruth Powers’ quilt Beneficial Burn II, I immediately thought about the devastating wildfires we had in California last year. Then I realized that Ruth is from Kansas, and her quilt is about the beneficial fires that make grasslands healthier:

Korean artist Eunhee Lee’s Looking at the Horizon, has a similar color scheme, but represents the beauty of the morning glow on the horizon:

Alicia Merrett from the United Kingdom sent in Estuary in Blue. Almost abstract, this quilt represents the unusual ecosystem of the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary in South Devon:

Abstract Quilts

It might not surprise you to hear that some of my favorite quilts in the show were abstract.

I liked the colors and composition of Not Quite Lemon Bars or Red Velvet Ladders by California artist Darlene Talukder:

Rise Up Singing by Sue Fox is made of necktie silk, and has an appealing sheen and interesting stitch-created flow:

To See and to Hug by Israeli artist Niza Hoffman has a lot of interesting detail to look at:

12 Shades of ? by Australian  quilter Pat Forster has a different, more structured aesthetics, yet a lot of interest:

Uta Lenk’s Shapes 29 from Germany has a strong color combination with interesting textural details:

Another Time and Place, a quilt about the feminine aspects of numbers by Robbi Eklow from Nebraska, appealed to me in it symmetry and color combination. Probably also because of the fact that it is meant to be a meditation quilt:

New York’s Marcia DeCamp’s Sunset by the Sea has some of my favorite colors:

And also some simple-yet-fun quilting:

Last but not least, my absolute show favorite quilt arrived all the way from Germany. Bricks’n Gears by Claudia Pfeil has fun colors, a complex composition and meticulous quilting. It actually won a ribbon for best long-arm quilting:

If you look closely, you might be able to see the tiny shiny beads that Claudia glued inside the pattern to give the quilt a bit of extra spark:

Bay Area folks: the 2019 Pacific International Quilt Festival is open until Sunday. Head on over if you have the time, and let me know which quilts jumped out at YOU!

 

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