Quilting on the Pond: Show Quilts Part 5

Carol here ~

Well, it is pretty.

I don't know about you but I am not ready for it.

The next quilt in the line up of show quilts hangs in our house.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE STARS ~ designed and pieced by Dan, quilted by me. It received ribbons for Exceptional Merit, Best Machine Quilting on a Longarm and also the Founder's Award at Vermont Quilt Festival. At Machine Quilter's Expo it received First Place (Blue), Second Place (red) at Road to California and First Place (blue) at Maine Quilts. It was also juried into and displayed at several American Quilter's Society Shows ~ Paducah, Lancaster and Des Moines.

Spotlight Ribbons

Here it is hanging here at the house.

And here are a few better photos from different shows that show the quilting a bit better.

I had no idea what to do for the quilting on this. It hung in the studio for several weeks so I could keep studying it when working on other quilts. I finally just decided to load it on the longarm and start with ditch work and go from there. It took me 60 hours to quilt.

From Dan ~ “Spotlight on the Stars” was enjoyed by many. It has been more places than I have. The quilt is centered around a 9” V-block star with a 3”one in the middle with the block set on point. The alternating block is basically the same block with the light blue V-block made with the V-blocks rotated to point outward. The light blue and the yellow made the stars pop. When I talked to the founder of Vermont Quilt Festival after he awarded me his Founder’s award, he said he seldom chooses machine quilted works because in his opinion the quilting seldom adds to the work, it just accompanies it by lying on top. He thought this quilting accented and complimented the work. Carol again had a lot of room to play with.

Judges comments ~ Understated, elegant, superb. Excellent piecing, quilting designs are well chosen and executed. Thread color should match binding, not backing. (oops) Combination of construction, quilting design and technique creates a beautifully balanced and visually interesting piece. All techniques well handled. Excellent machine quilting.

(I think they liked this one)

LOTSA LEMOYNES ~ designed and pieced by Dan, quilted by me. It received First Place (Blue) at Vermont Quilt Festival, Second Place(Red) at Machine Quilter's Expo, First Place (blue) for Best Use of Color at Quiltfest Lancaster.

Neither Dan or I have many photos of this one, can't find any close ups etc. Who knows what happened to them.

Judges comments ~ the quilting has added great texture and design in the background, very effective color palette, well chosen quilting design, quilting is well done and evenly quilted, placement of stars and star fabric choices dance across the quilt, well constructed.

Dan here ~ “Lotsa Lemoynes” was designed as I went. After first coming up with the the on point center it was a challenge to fill-in the rest of the quilt. The blazing Lemoynes of various sizes set off with the banded lemoynes gave Carol lots of space to play around in. Some lemoynes even showed up in the borders.

This is another one I didn't know what to do with so just loaded it on the machine and started playing. As you have probably figured out by now, feathers are my favorite to quilt. I offset them by creating "boxes" around the smaller sets of stars, added some curved cross hatching and straight lines around the larger squares. This one lsotook me around sixty hours to quilt.