A Visit to Quilt National 2011

As I said before, it’s great to live in Ohio in the summer when all the quilt shows are going on in town!  Quilt National is every two years and is my favorite! It’s a juried show with 85 quilts accepted and shown in an old dairy barn in a cute rural town.  For me, it’s only a 1.5 hr drive from Columbus and so I go every year.  The town of Athens is the location of Ohio University and has many great little places to eat too…a quilter’s second favorite thing to do.

I just got back with my friend and we loved the show! So many beautiful quilts of wonderful color palettes and techniques. We quilters are looking closely at techniques and found many inspirational ideas so that was exciting. Looking at the quilts we are trying to memorize easy quilting patterns for the ‘free-motion impaired’ as well as color combinations that are particularly striking.  You can’t remember it all so the best thing to do is buy the book of the entire collection.

Lucky for me, and you, Kathleen Dawson, the director of the show sent us these photos of the gallery to share on the blog! They arrived at my IN box the moment I got home and sat down at my computer!  A big THANKS to Kathleen since you aren’t allowed to photograph the show and a blog without photos is not as interesting!

They ask you to vote for your favorite quilt and above is mine/the Dandelion one by Kate Themel. Close up you can see the stitching lines on white tulle that make the whispy part of the dandelion and gives it that lifelike effect.  Of course it was impossible to decide on a favorite and I changed my mind ten times but thought I would like to have this hanging in my house!

 

On the left is a piece by Elizabeth Brimelow from the UK in 3 long panels that go up, over the rod and down the other side. The piece on the right is the Best of Show by Bonnie Bucknam.

Many of these quilts are for sale but the ones I loved were already sold or optioned. The gift shop has many smaller quilts that are reasonably priced and nice samples of the artists’ work.

This is only a small peek into the show and nothing compares to seeing the quilts in person so try to visit if you can before it ends Sept.5. Check their website for times www.dairybarn.org.

And if you still can’t make it to the show, buy the hardcover book, Quilt National 2011.