Our Empire Guild meeting today was, as always, a chance to see a lot of interesting quilts and get some inspiration -- and another frustration at winning nothing in the raffle! Ah, well. The speaker was Barbara Barber from the U.K who had her CATS quilts which is a true tour de force of appleque -- eight extremely complex cats, and some 600 small, probably no two alike flowers around the cats. The amount of work that went into that quilt is so staggering I cannot imagine it. This picture is of an earlier quilt which has a somewhat similar format. It is part of a permanent collection at [I think I'm correct] the American Quilt Society Museum in Padukah, KY. Imagine these animals all being cats, each different, each a true to life portrait, but surrounded by a field of flowers. Barbara was called one of the 30 best living quilters by a Japanese group -- and the Japanese are consummate quilt craftswomen so to give someone else that designation is a great honor! Barbara showed us several other quilts; I did not see a personal style or statement in her work but I did see amazing passion for doing the best she could on every project she makes.
Our own Quilter of the Month was Sandra Samaniegro. I've enjoyed her many quilts at show & tell - also enjoy her person style which is usually wonderful bright and complex jackets. She makes wall quilts, not bed quilts, and uses all kinds of techniques. For her quilting is clearly a playful and joyous creative outlet -- no deep angst about making things perfect, she makes things because they are fun and fulfilling. In truth, I prefer her style to Barbara's but that is because her approach is so much more like my own.
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