Tri-Cities 2012 Quilt Show

It's that time of year again where quilt shows become a road trip excursion I venture to around the region.  Tri-Cities is 42 miles away from Walla Walla, WA, consists of three separate cities, Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland, that the Columbia, Yakima, and Snake Rivers flows through the middle.  There is about 300,000 people that live in the Tri-Cities area.

Tri-Cities is best known for the Hanford site, aka Manhattan Project, bordering Richland, which is where the nuclear bomb were made for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  A little regional history.

Back the the quilts!

Black abstract log cabin

Tiny log cabin detail

Abstract wall hanging

These mini log cabin blocks were very interesting to see up close.  I love the white version best.






There were a couple of quilts that I really enjoyed at the Tri-Cities Quilt Show this year.  The theme of the show was "Stitching Stars" which some of the quilts are shown below for this challenge.

Love the colors!

Love the trees and colors

The Tri-Cities Quilt Show generally has the Hoffman Challenge and the 2011 challenge fabric was not that inspiring to me this year.  I'm not sure why, could be the more muted palette?  So I didn't take any pictures from this year's traveling exhibits.

The National Featured Artist was Sally Schneider.  I didn't take pictures of the quilts because they were a little too old fashioned for me. I encourage you to google her name and see some of the patterns and quilts she's made.

Sue White's Landscape

 

Sue White's wall hanging

Sky Detail

quilting detail

 Sue White is the Featured Tri-Cities member and I enjoyed some of her great wall hangings.  Some had great quilting detail, such as the goldfish with the ripples.  The diamond background was very creative, the 3D effect with the foliage, and the great quilting.

Mountain detail

Her landscapes were great too!  There are different layers to create the shading, the netting for texture, and quilting for more movement through the different layers in the picture.

Sue White's 3D tree

Three Sheets to the Wind

She had an amazing tree trunk that was 3D (the lighter trunk) and creates shadows behind, creating a realistic looking tree in addition to the shading and quilting.

I had to take a picture of the Inuit ladies with this wall hanging titled "Three Sheets to the Wind."  I would tell you who made this quilt if I could find it in the quilt program.

COLOR CHALLENGE

Color Challenge -- Yellow and Black

The color challenge was an interesting concept for the show.  A group of quilters picked a color card and the challenge was to design a monotonic wall hanging following the color card.  About 4 colors were duplicated by two different members, while others had one person (for example, one white, one black, etc.)

Color Challenge -- Yellow Greens

You can see the subtle differences in the pink/orange range as well as the green range.  These covered one side of the exhibit hall and was my favorite part of the entire quilt show.  Each of the wall hangings also had size restrictions, creating a uniform appearance to the panels.

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did in person.  It is hard to see the great details of these pieces of art with a varying degree of experiences of the quilters.

The quilting group meet regularly to teach and learn from each other how to do quilting techniques, which is more creative than the business of a quilting guild.

Color Challenge -- Green/Chartreuse

 Quilting Guilds

I've been a member of two different guilds and attended another guild meeting.  Guilds are a great way to learn from other quilters, build a social circle, etc.  However, the guilds are there to conduct business during the meetings and the workshops they provide for their members help teach new quilting techniques (paid by the dues).  Not all guilds host a quilt show either.  It depends on what the group wants to do as their yearly project or activities.

Color Challenge -- Aquas

One guild I was part of in Bishop, CA, we did a monthly block exchange, we worked on a quilt show that is scheduled during Memorial Day weekend, and we also worked on some group projects, like round robins.  Bishop is a town of 4,000 and there was not a lot of excitement or entertainment.  The guild had some great ladies and talent, helped spark my creativity.

So there are some pros and cons to guilds.  I am not too jazzed about my local guild, but it's been about 9 years since I attended a meeting here, so maybe I'll give it a whirl again.

Color Challenge -- Aqua/Blue/Turquoise range

My friend and I enjoy meeting once a month to do a "sew-in" to visit, eat, sew, discuss, etc.  She roped me into doing an online bee this year, SewBeeIt, that I really enjoy.  It's been awhile since I did monthly homework assignments.

 The Shopping

Color Challenge -- Pink/Salmon range

The best part about the quilt show was seeing the increased number of vendors, which there were more selling bolted fabric than previous year.  I rarely bought anything last year because all they had were kits, pre-cuts, patterns, which I generally do not buy.  However, my hobby is getting a little too expensive for me when prices have jumped to $12/yard.  For cotton.  The batiks used to be the most expensive thing to sew with, but not anymore.

Color Challenge -- Orange range

I checked out online if there were any sales that I could go to instead.  Craft Warehouse had all their bolted fabric 30% off, so I spent my allotted budget there, plus, if you showed them your quilt program, you get a free $5 gift card.  Even better!

Craft Warehouse has really good quality of fabric than JoAnns and great prices when it's on sale.  They have the new Kate Spain "Good Fortune" line, not all the prints and colors, but I snagged the magenta bamboo print.  You can still find some of the "Terrain" and "Central Park" fabrics.

Color Challenge -- Terra Cotta range

There was a nice collection of Moda's Modern Half Moon fabric, which I got the grey modern leaves.  There was some Mary Engelbreit fabrics for the "Kitchen Kapers" line with aprons, panels, etc. and I splurged on this too.  I have plenty of the black background with cherries, so I resisted.  Mary Engelbreit is about as "cute" as I go with my novelty fabric.

I got 15 different fabrics, about 20 yards of fabric for about $120, that includes sales tax.  Yes, I am the type of person to buy random one yard cuts of fabric.

Color Challenge -- White/Beige range

They also have a huge table full of flat folds for $6/yard but those weren't on sale this time.  Sometimes you can snag some Patty Young 2009 fabrics, so it's usually a good idea to check it out once in awhile when you have the time.  You never know what you will find.