Quilty Pleasures Wednesday: I Miss Road to California!

Each year toward the end of January one of my favorite quilt shows, Road to California sets up shop at the Ontario Convention Center.  It's gigantic in scope, with exhibit halls overflowing with quilts and more quilts, wearable art, and vendors from all over the world offering enticing stuff that you never realized you needed!

And I need it all! 

They also have classes offered by the quilt world's luminaries. I've missed "Road" for a couple years now and plan to visit and maybe take a couple classes next year. 

So I must content myself with photos of this year's winners. It makes me feel energized looking at these quilts. Some I know I would never do because they would take a long time, but others give me a little kick in the seat that says, "You could try this."

Here is a link to this year's winners:

http://www.road2ca.com/2011winners/road/winners.html

And this is my favorite, for today, at least. Beth Nufer of Brookings, Oregon you are my new quilt hero. Look at those flying diamonds and the mariner's compass blocks scattered over the quilt.  The quilter is Shelly Knapp, who is Beth's frequent collaborator. Below the photo are Beth's words about this quilt, which is electrifying.

 

112 in x 112 in Winner of $150.00 for 1st Place: Innovative, Large, Pieced
Sponsored by The Quilt Cupboard

Entered by Beth Nufer (Brookings, OR)
Made by Beth Nufer
Quilted by Shelly Knapp
Started in 2009, Finished in 2009
Design basis: Mariner's Compass Quilts by Judy Mathison
Artist statement: I made 45 degree templates, totalling 80 pieces to complete the central design. I increased the squares in small increments as they went out from the center. The mariners compasses were appliquéd on some and pieced on others all around my original design.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-A Mystery Quilt

Road to California is a gigantic quilt show held each January in Ontario, offering a star studded cast of quilt legends.  There are classes to take, demos to watch, quilts to admire and lectures to attend. It's four days of quilt overload! I spend way too much, but that's okay because while I am typing this, Tom is probably on ebay. Yeah, I just checked and there he is.

That's Mark with his dogbuddies

 Mark Lipinski was at Road a couple years ago, so sis-in-law Pattie and I decided to take a mystery quilt class from him. It was from 6 in the evening until the wee hours of the morning.  Some of these quilty ladies had entire quilts made in record time. It was like they were in the Bluebirds reading group and I was in the Buzzards!

Outside the meeting room a beautiful, eclectic mix of quilts was arrayed on the hallway floor like a Middle Eastern carpet bazaar. Back inside the meeting room, I plugged away at my sewing machine, just trying to get the danged quilt done.

I tried to stick it out, but when I began rotary cutting like a drunkard, I knew it was time to pack it in. Suffice it to say that around midnight I ran out of gas and went to bed.

A few weeks later I finished the quilt. Then it sat for a while longer, about six months or so, and I finally took it to the quilter.  When I got it back it was time to move and I hadn't sewn on the binding. It still isn't sewn on, but I have an incentive: I promised a charity in Mora that they could have a quilt for their silent auction and I promised it for next week. So the quilt will finally be done,  have a new home and there will be scholarships for some Mora seniors.

 

I like it but I don't love it, so that's why it's going to a new home.

Here's a close-up of the fabric used in the quilt. I love that flowery print, don't you? The shadow of doom is me and the camera phone. (Gotta find the real camera. Where is it?)