Three Quilts from the New England Quilt Show

 The New England Quilt Show has moved to Manchester, VT from Nashua where it formerly was.  This is a better venue and the show-- although somewhat crowded in the room they chose to use in the Raddison Convention Center (there is a much larger room that was not used -- I assume it was a matter of money).  However they had a room next door where all the venders were.  I found that a very good arrangement -- it was possible to concentrate on the show without being distracted by vender booths and the vender room was well arranged and easy to maneuver.

Most of the quilts -- no surprise -- were what I call contemporary traditional.  They were all well made, nearly all used the beautiful modern fabrics available, both batiks and the many lines for quilters.  They had a harmoniousness that only can be achieved by having a wide choice of fabrics. Many were traditional patterns, and variations thereof, often with applique to compliment piecing.  Usually with complex

 long-arm or home machine quilting, many with embellishments  -- all the tricks, the bells an whistles that are beloved of quilt magazine editors. And beloved of quilters also.  They were labor intensive and reason for the makers to be proud.

But there were few surprises, these three surprised me enough to pull out my camera and take photos. The tree was elegant in its simplicity--a breath of elegance among all the complexity (all of which was in the service of what many today think elegance means, but I disagree, obviously)

The two lower quits were made by women who were judges of the show.  The random stripes with the floating circles is also simple, it's more whimsical than elegant and made me smile.  It seems to me this is a woman who truly enjoys putting fabrics together and isn't hung up on the color wheel.

This fish has a blue ribbon on it as you can see.  If you look closely you'll also see three segments of scales made of tabs from pop-open soda cans. The eye is also part of a  metal tab. Again whimsical, but in this case whimsey applied to a quilt that required a lot of planning and sewing.  There are borders that cannot be seen in this photo which were also complex. 

I did not write down the names of the quilters as I should have done.  I wasn't thinking about blogging but simply about enjoying the few quilts that said to me this is someone with an artist's soul, not a person overly influenced by the pictures in the magazine.  I enjoyed the show but I was not inspired by it.  It's good to see excellent craftsmanship.