One thing that I noticed at the quilt show was that a lot of quilters were using embroidery in their designs. Most of it was machine embroidery, but I took a picture of a sweet little barn because it looked like it could have been hand embroidered.

It may be machine embroidered, but I liked it. It actually reminded me of our friend Stan’s barn before he moved and built a newer barn.

One way that the quilts were displayed were in little “rooms” set up along one wall. My mom and I saw a quilted curio cabinet that was darling.

There were buttons for the drawer pulls and they had sewn crocheted doilies on it, too.

Isn’t that adorable?

I also enjoyed this ‘parking sign’:

I have one more quilt that I want to show you because I don’t know how to categorize it, but it was interesting to look at.

It’s too contemporary for my tastes, but I felt the quilter did an excellent job with the ombre effect. Here’s a slightly closer look at the little squares:

You can also see how the quilting works to pull your eye around those curved ribbons.

Now, the first technique/pattern that I want to show you is one that I’ve shared in a previous quilt show post. Kaleidoscope quilts weren’t as represented as they have been in the past, but there were a couple at this show that I liked.

A kaleidoscope quilt takes a piece of fabric:

Then it is cut up in such a way that each part of the fabric undergoes a kaleidoscope effect:

When you take the different parts of the fabric that you’ve done this to and put it together, you have a quilt that looks like it uses more than one fabric.

When I first saw the Star Wars quilt across the room I almost dismissed it. Then something caught my eye and I realized what was on the fabric.

There was one more kaleidoscope quilt that I stopped and just looked at for a few minutes. First I’ll show you the fabric panel that was used.

Here’s the full quilted panel:

It makes the panel look a bit abstract, doesn’t it? Almost like it’s a fantasy-type of scene. I would never have thought of using this technique to make this kind of a panel. Now, this is art! It’s definitely not candy that has been dropped on the floor.

Here is a picture of some of the blocks:

The day before we went to the quilt show I had been at my chiropractor’s office for my monthly cracking. He always asks me what my plans are so I was telling him about the show. I mentioned that it’s interesting to me how different a pattern can look just by changing the color scheme. He doesn’t spend a lot of his extra time perusing quilting magazines, so he was impressed by that thought.

The following four quilts are all made from the same pattern.

Isn’t it amazing how the different uses of color can draw your eyes in different directions? As a right-brained person it really intrigues me when I see examples like these four quilts all together. Isn’t it fascinating?

Well, I think that’s it for this year’s quilt show. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!