Just Thinking Out Loud

I can't believe I'm staying up late to write this post, but here they are. All five of the quilts that I ended up putting in the NCW Quilt Show. I'll post later next week with pics of other quilts that caught my eye.

Scrappy Tulips

First of all, I went with a quiet but clearer mind this year. No 'comparison is the thief of joy' type of thoughts, 'not gonna nitpick the details', just a solid determination to enjoy. I'm a confident but filled with insecurities sort of gal and quilt shows can be difficult. The reason to do this is because nothing beats going to a quilt show and being inspired. By little ideas or big ones. Wonderful color and out of the box thinking. A saturation of the senses that is almost impossible to get strictly from pictures on the Net {especially when you're dealing with a camera-handicapped person like me!}.

Vintage Red

No ribbons this year which inexplicably made it all so much better. Wacko that I am, it was refreshing to know that none of my quilts stood out over any of the other ones I brought.*sigh  It's hard when people play favorites with our quilts! Scrappy Tulips {the first pic} almost didn't make the cut. The colors don't play nice in some lighting and it worried me. Turns out it was the one that absolutely shown under the lights at the quilt show. Totally melted my heart and I went back and stared at it several times. It looked sort of old timey, but sweet. Really, really sweet and dreamy. Why weren't more people staring at this quilt? lol

Vintage Red was one that I emphatically was not going to enter. Turns out I just couldn't resist seeing how it would look hanging up where I could see it full on. Oh my, did I love turning the corner and seeing that one. Totally vintage vibe going on which just made me smile so big. I totally nailed this idea! And well, I went ahead and looked at some of the other sewing details in others quilts. Uh huh. Maybe my mistakes aren't quite as horrible and blatantly obvious as I thought. Might have to rethink that one.

Quilty 365

I got a little jolt seeing Quilty 365 hanging up for the first time. That quiet looking stitching around every other block is a secret weapon. Can't see it in this pic at all, but all my concern over there not being enough stitching in this quilt were totally put to rest. I really, really loved seeing this one hanging out for others to peruse. I wished so hard it would have been where I could have stood back a long ways and looked at it from different distances. The colors/values do the dance thing. They really do. It wasn't just my imagination or wishful thinking.

Sunburst

I think Sunburst was in the poorest lighting overall. Yes, it's the brand new finish and looks so much better in proper lighting. I'll give it a post all its own next week so you can see how good the Baptist Fan stitching looks and sigh with me over the sweet look to it. Am I on a sweet kick? It seems to be so. There are lurking questions about this quilt, things I might have done different, but overall, it was a good one to umm, not compare to others. Not quite as complex as it appeared all the while I was hand sewing it. Funny how time and 'distance' change our perspectives.

Hills and Valleys

And Hills and Valleys was the other one that I wiffle, waffled about entering into the show. Turns out the lighting was fine for it, just not for me, the picture taker. Mostly I just wanted to look at the texture of this quilt in a hanging up presentation. Great idea as I just stood in front and sort of soaked it all in. Honestly, I'm super happy with this quilt, and yes, it looks tremendously better in person. It's kind of crazy that this quilt was made by me. 5 years ago, this wasn't in my wheelhouse at all--something to feel very good about today as I considered my growth as a quilter.

Don't worry if you're scratching your head over my enthusiasm, I can't see you and won't get my feelings hurt a bit. The thing I learned today is that I am completely, unabashedly making the sort of quilts that make my heart go pitter patter. Sometimes I worry at some of the squirrels that crop up, but a lot of these tangents lead to wonderful surprises and fabulous interpretations--things we might never have explored if we stick to the plan.  Every single time I turned the corner and saw one of my quilts, it was like 'Well, hello old friend'. Makes the effort and anxiety totally worthwhile. It's so good to get validation once in awhile that we do have a style, a look, or even a muse that is personal and custom fitted to us. And you know what?

This year being in the minority with that sort of thing didn't even bother me one little bit. So my quilts are softer, more simplistic, scrappy and naive looking. So what! I enjoyed the entire quilt show! All those sharp looking, fancy machine quilted quilts just got a different part of my attention. Maybe I'm finally reaching adulthood in my quilting journey? Please don't answer that. Thanks to NCW Quilty Guild for being so welcoming! I'll probably be back next year with another stack....