Thursday, August 05, 2010

Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod Show


The Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod is a large guild that meets mid-Cape, which I joined today when I went to see their show. A few years ago Rachel and I went to one of their shows and were quite underwhelmed. But today's show had many lovely quilts to look at, mostly contemporary pieced, quite a few older quilts were shown and quite a few were traditional usually with contemporary fabric. I was happy that long arm machine quilting was not as prominent as in some shows I've seen in the last few years. And there were a few hand quilted bed size quilts that were beautifully done. Yes, there were some art quilts but none I felt inclined to photograph.

In a way I call the blue quilt above an art quilt. It was my favorite and I'm driving myself a bit nuts trying to figure out my own handwriting to see who made it and I've miserably failed. I'm sorry because this is another Marian Rosenthal kaleidoscope quilt, possibly the prettiest, I've seen so far. I constantly learn how important the fabric choice is and that various things work, in this case a fabric that did not have a great deal of pattern and was only blue.
This quilt with the bright orange, which is less than a quarter the size of the blue one, is as bold and vibrant as the blue is serene. The piecing didn't photograph well. It is an askew log cabin and each black central square has a blue button on it. This is gy Julie Larivaire and I took the picture because this paper pieced pattern keeps appearing when I go through my stack of "someday" pictures and patterns. I would choose different fabrics, of course, I think this reminds me not to use something this brilliant.
There were several pretty batik quilts including this one by Kathryn Kacergis. I think it works very well. These batiks have been popular for quite a few years and, lovely as they are, they're beginning to seem to me ho-hum. Maybe that's only because I currently have a batik quilt on my bed which has dark and vibrant colors on one side and pastels on the other and I've been looking at it a little too long.

The guild did a very good job with the show. They had a very fine group of vendors, a caterer who offered good sandwiches for a good price [I always found awful food available at the various shows I've been to in New Jersey], and the quilts were displayed well. The venue, a technical school complex, is extremely easy to find. Two different doors were marked as entrances. As it happened I went out the one I had not come in and found myself facing a parking lot that my car was not in. It took me a bit to orient myself and find my car.

1 comment :

Diana said...

The blue one reminds me of the Milky Way. I am always amazed at the patterns created from this technique.

I hope you find as much friendship and support from your new guild as I have found from mine.