PIQF, 2008

This delightful quilt is "Pup Art" by Nancy S. Brown, and it won the Viewers' Choice award at the recent Pacific International Quilt Festival. I was there last Friday and Saturday, and my head is still spinning from all the great stuff I saw. This quilt was one of my very favorites (as Nancy Brown's always are -- her animal portraits are so fun and so detailed.)

I'm lucky that I grew up about 20 minutes away from the show venue in Santa Clara, California, so I take the opportunity to spend a few nights with my parents and have two days to see the show. It is simply too huge for one day's worth of viewing. I get sort of glazed over, seeing so many stunning quilts all in a row, so it's good for me to break up my quilt-viewing with some time strolling through the vendor booths.

This year, my friend Pat was going to be in the area staying at her son's house (under a similar arrangement to mine) so I picked her up at her son's new house bright and early friday morning, and we were at the door when the show opened. We immediately made our way to the furthest place, so we could view quilts unimpeded by the crowds starting near the door. That put us in the international room, where we saw some stunning quilts from Japan and Australia and special exhibits (Priscilla Bianchi's comes to mind -- I love her happy quilts with bold Guatemalan fabrics).

And then there were the vendors! Pat and I made good show companions, as we tend to like the same types of stuff -- which can be a problem when you're counting on a buddy to help you restrain yourself! We tended to just help justify more purchases! Still, we each got a few nice pieces of fabric -- some unusual japanese wrapping cloths, some good pale batiks (have you noticed how hard it is to find batiks in good pale browns and yellows?) and the odd fat quarter that we couldn't resist.

I came armed with a list of the King Tut thread (from Superior) that I already have -- I love it for machine quilting and tend to just buy the same colors over and over. So I filled in some gaps, checking them off neatly on my thread chart. (A tiny bit of organization in my otherwise chaotic supply system ... but it's a start!) I also came away with a spool of fusible thread to play with -- seems useful, yes?

I resisted all books but the new Kaffe Fassett one (yep, the one I just reviewed). When I got home, I discovered that I had bought a fair amount of pinks and greens and browns. They seem to coordinate rather nicely, actually, even though I wasn't buying with anything in mind. But you should have seen what I DIDN'T buy! I am getting better at catch-and-release shopping (that is, putting stuff BACK and walking away.)

As always, the quilts were inspirational. You can see the big prizewinners here.