Quilts, Quilts, Everywhere...

I just got home from one day at the Quilt Festival. Yes, I know I could have spent longer but I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. There really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I didn't have to hep out at Sweet Sadie's last night, as originally planned, so I spent time at preview night, a couple of hours shopping today, time at the anniversary luncheon and time getting inspired at the Mixed Media Sampler. That's more than enough for a girl who thought she wouldn't have more than a couple of hours to see the quilts and shop.

Seeing the quilts is why we should go to the Festival but the vendor booths do pull us in to see all the neat things available. The best part is seeing things from other parts of the world like the vendor from Spain with her whimsical hand painted silk panels, or the guys from Africa with their unique fabrics or the ladies from Canada with their needlework magazine that seems straght out of the fifties.

I love it all.

The winners of all the prizes can be seen here. If you click on the sidebar (IQA winners) you will get to the quilts. If you click on any one of them you can see larger pictures of all of them individually. The pictures just do not do the quilts justice as you cannot see the intricate trapuntoed hand applique of the Founders' Award winning quilt or the glitter of the Machine Artistry Award winner. Although the best in show did not impress me as much as other quilts that I saw, the quality of all the quilts was truly amazing.

One thing did tick me off a little.

There is a new magazine being introduced at the show. It is called 'International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene'. It is a collaboration of Interweave Press's Quilting Arts magazine and the International Quilt Festival. Advertising has been going on for months and not a week goes by that I don't get an e-mail asking me to suscribe.

Here's what ticks me off.

Included in the premiere issue are two full pages on each of the big winners with interviews with the quilters who made them.

I understand that the winners are notified ahead of time that they are winners of something to encourage their attendance at the awards ceremony which was Tuesday night. If the awards ceremony was Tuesday night, how did interviews and pictures of their quilts get into a magazine to be sold on Wednesday at the show?

Why not just make the announcements to the world when the awards are known and skip the whole surprise thing. Heck, if the printers knew at least a month ago why not let the rest of us know at the same time? I heard that one of the big winners was handing out business cards in September noting her win in Houston this October.

There was also an embarassing moment last night. I thought a frend had won one of the smaller awards and I immeadiately got on the cell phone to let others know. It turns out that she didn't win, I just mis-read the sign for her quilt as the sign for the winning quilt. My face was red when I found out my mistake. It will take a long time to live that one down.

Enjoy the slide show!