Caught my eye at Quilt National 09

There are many pieces which caught my eye & drew me in for a closer look at Quilt National 09. The few I'm sharing with you in this post & the next are by no means the extent of the wonderful work on display which ranges from quirky to sophisticated with the full range of today's art quilt techniques & execution being explored.

Ginny Smith caught my eye with the bold yellow & black of her naive styled design.

Sue Cavanaugh uses shibori in 'Ori-kume#1' right & was awarded the Lynn Goodwin Borgman Award for Surface Design.
Kathy York's 'Little Fish in a Big City' below, had the novelty factor with it's dimensionality & you can read more about the construction on her blog.

The Dairy Barn

Quilt National is held at the Diary Barn in Athens, Ohio. It is a lovely old barn restored & used as an arts centre. The upper section is divided into various workshop rooms & offices. The downstairs gallery houses the 83 quilts from Quilt National. Lorraine & I are standing in front of Carol Taylor's quilt 'Abundance'.

Home Down Under

I am finally home after many delayed flights & one that was cancelled. I started travelling home from Athens, Ohio at 8am on Sunday & got to sleep in my own bed on Tuesday night.
While waiting for our delayed flight in Columbus Ohio, Lorraine Carthew & I met the delightful Yvonne Porcella founder & first President of Studio Art Quilt Associates. She was also attending the SAQA conference Art & Excellence in Athens.
I'm a big fan of Yvonne's as it was her colourful quilts that I first saw when beginning my quilt making journey in 1990. We passed the hours in delightful conversation with a generous, knowledgeable & interesting woman.
As I still have many images from the conference & my trip I'll be sharing these with you over the coming weeks. Thank you to everyone who has been following the blog & passing on comments to me. It's nice to know you care.

Homeward bound

Farewell Athens & New York, the long journey home begins. Things to look forward to- my own bed, jet lag, family, friends & vegemite! Not necessarily in that order!
Having gained a day on the way to NYC I now lose it coming back.

Quilt National 09 opening

Well, you meet the most interesting artists at a

Quilt National opening & some have worked their fingers to the bone! Susan Else produced 'Nothing to Fear' left.

Other artists below with their work are Australians Ruth deVos & Alison Schwabe, Canadian Anna Hergert & American Regina Benson.

While Beth Carney, another exhibitor & I just had a great time at the dinner catching up after seeing each other in New York earlier in the month.

Lunn fabrics Lancaster

It was a beautiful warm sunny day for our drive to Lancaster Ohio to the studio of Lunn Fabrics, the home of Debra & Michael. And they were having a sale! The fabric was sold by the pound! I have admired their textile designs for as long as I can remember & now they produce their designs in batik manufactured in Java, Indonesia. As an added bonus we took a short walk uptown past many historic homes & discovered the birthplace of General Sherman of the Civil War.

New friends

Workshops are great to learn new techniques & expand the possibilities of quilt making.
Another nice thing is meeting quilters from other countries & making new friends. I'm here in Athens with Lorraine Carthew, work above & we have met Ellen Lindner from Florida, work to the right.

Carol Ann Waugh has heavily stitched her piece from the workshop & it has taken on wonderful dimension & mystery.

Debbie Bein of the colourful socks has used her own printed fabric & what started as a teapot has taken on a very sophisticated quality.