Quilt Show, Anacortes WA

On display at The Quilt Shop in Anacortes

Batiks in jewel-tone colors... Yummmmmy!

I love the floating flying-geese border!

The machine quilting is quite nice too!

Anacortes, WA, 20 miles west of the I-5 freeway and with a population of only 17,000 or so, is an unlikely haven for fabrics and fibers. Although it's a small town, the main street boasts two very fine fabric shops, Fabrics Plus (my fave quilt shop in the whole world!) and The Quilt Shop, an equally fine yarn/fiber shop (Ana-cross Stitch), and an amazing number of very talented quilters and fiber artists.

Quilting pals, Lunnette and Cathy, joined me in a two-day get-away last weekend! We shopped at all three Anacortes stores, spent hours both days at the 2012 Quilt Show hosted by the Fidalgo Island Quilters, saw the latest show at the LaConner Quilt Museum, ate at a fabulous new restaurant in Anacortes (Frida's), stayed in the Anacortes Inn, and had a blast! I tell you, there's just nothing more satisfying than three quilting fans, away from home, with hundreds of quilts to view and fabric vendors galore! OMG, we had so much fun! All pictures are click to enlarge...

This is one of my favorite quilts in the show: Color Study by Barbara Hylton

Her applique and quilting techniques are flawless; the colors and design gorgeous!

 Only one little problem... I forgot to charge my camera battery and didn't bring the charger. Ergo: not many pictures to show. Missing are some of my favorite quilts in the show. Oh well... they were all good, as you can see below!

What a fun play of color and design!!!

Sorry, I didn't jot down artist's name. If you know it, please comment!

Most interesting to figure out how these triangles join to create the illusion of circles!

Again, help! (no artist's name). Love the polka dot background fabric used to tie colors together.

Nancy Davis must have had so much fun strip piecing, then cutting 90 degree triangles!

I love all the colors and the happy-scrappy look!

Whole-cloth quilting intrigues me a lot, especially because it might be just what I need for some of the fabrics I dyed in Ann Johnston's workshop. However, judging from the totally excellent example below, it will be a big learning curve to do this type of quilting.

"Arabesque" by Laurie Weiner - fabulous example of whole cloth quilting!

I hope she won best of show for small quilts!

There were quite a few compelling art quilts in the show. But I only took one picture. This one was made by layering cut out shapes of organza over fabric, using it and the quilting stitches to bring forward the design. I'm impressed with both her technique and design skills.

Farmers Market by Arlene Anderson

Lastly, I give you two small quilts I thought were quite fun! Then the camera battery went dead forcing me to see in a more meditative way, hoping that good ideas and inspirations will stay with me...

Ruth Mazur used a "flip and sew" method similar to crazy quilting to make this!

It really didn't need the pansy fabric centers to read "flowers"

"Free Range Chicks" by Lanne Carr

A happy quilt... as much fun from a distance as close up!