DVQ Quilt Show: Entries, Winnings, Favorites

What I Entered:
This past weekend was the quilt show for the Diablo Valley Quilters, located in the Diablo Valley of the Greater Bay Area of San Francisco. This is a second guild I belong to although it is a bit further for me to travel. The show displayed  ~200 quilts.  I had entered three quilts and a pillow. The show entry deadline motivated me to finish off the binding and label on Out of the Blue (8/16/17), my quilt from Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

This quilt is actually going to get deployed for use in my family room instead of being folded up on storage. I liked the result from a kit much more than I initially thought I would, hence part of the reason for the title Out of the Blue beyond just that of the color.

My second entry, Storybook Charm (7/5/17), was bound several weeks before the show, but I needed to scurry to add labels and a hanging sleeve.

The third quilt was a Monkey Quilt and the pillow was a Bunny Pillow. Yes, indeed, these are very creative titles, I must admit. They belong to my youngest son Alex and I borrowed them back from him for the show. He was amused to spot them there when his dad brought him to the show to see them displayed. The monkey panel quilt (5/26/14) had been a birthday present.

The bunny panel pillow (12/15/16) was a Christmas present I'd made for him.

Here is a closeup to show how I quilted the rolling hillsides.

Alex is waiting for his ride home with dad. I stayed behind to help with show take down. I must say that is a lot of work, but the team of volunteers cruise along like a well oiled machine.

What I Won:
Raffle baskets were awarded at the end of the show and I won one! I think I only dropped one ticket in basket number #16 but one is all it takes. I was doubly surprised because a friend I had come with the day before also won a basket. I can add my winnings to those I was also lucky enough to score at the Amador Valley Quilters Show in April. Yes, that is right. I won a basket at each of those shows. With the AVQ show I won a basket titled Christmas in April (5/2/17).  This DVQ basket was titled Elm Creek Extravaganza and, indeed, an extravaganza it was! 

What a haul! I initially cringed because my husband and I are trying to declutter our stuff - especially years of quilting and model train accumulations – and this prize was high volume.  But I must have secretly longed for this collection because, after all, I did drop a ticket in as a contender. Basket #16 was laden with everything you can imagine that was Elm Creek themed, with lots of fabric and notions as well. I must have taken the person who donated the prize years of dedication to have amassed such a complete collection. I feel lucky to have inherited it all in one fell swoop. Even my husband, as he helped me lug the pounds of books and fabric all out to the car, echoed that it would be a shame to break up such a beautiful set. (See why we have such a problem paring things down?)

I was not familiar with Amelia fabrics nor Jo Morton but I was soon to be educated.

The basket was perched on a set of fifteen hard bound Elm Creek Mystery novels.

There were five smaller hard bound books within the basket.

A companion book (on the right) was included as a roadmap through all the novels along with character and plot summaries and a timeline. Wow! There was also a spiral bound pattern book of 140 block patterns,

Four other pattern books were included for the quilts cited in the novels.

I lined the smaller books up within the basket to show off the lovely Longaberger basket complete with custom fitted lining.

The assortment of notions were all useful and some very timely. My current seam ripper is getting dull (Perhaps from overuse?... Nah!) and my needle threader is getting finicky from repetitious depression of its internal spring, so these are both welcome. I have never used a stand for the needle threader so I am curious about that gadget. That Jinny Beyer PERFECT PIECER looks like a real time saver with the the different angles available.

And finally I got to see the fabric. It will be a great complement to my stash. I bet those Jo Morton prints (on the left) will lend themselves to great FMQ work along the scallop lines. There is three yards of each piece. You know how you always tend to buy the same type of fabric over and over? My stash is very lopsidedly brights. The other day I had to go out and buy a fat quarter just to do a tree trunk. I rarely buy soft browns so these fill a big void. The stack has 34 fat quarters! Yoo-hoo! That is one of the big plusses about bargain kits or basket wins - they tend to hit your weak spots and stretch your creativity. I am all set for a fall theme quilt or placemats. Let's not get extreme. I am not all set. I am sure I will need to buy something to fill in here or there ...

What I Especially Liked:
There were just under 200 quilts in the show, in six loosely organized entry categories: Best Use of Color, Innovative, Modern, Traditional, Seasonal, and Nature. There was also a category for the Challenge quilts "Painted Ladies" which ran the gambit from San Francisco Row houses, to butterflies, to impressionistic portraits of women's faces. 200 is too many to show them all, but here were some of my personal favorites. End caps of the rows had clever round tables decked out with reminders for each of the categories.

In the BEST USE OF COLOR I loved the appliquéd flowers quilt titled Flower Garden. The owl wallhanging is titled Oliver. His background is all fabric selvages.

In the INNOVATIVE category table had a whole slew of adjectives to mean innovative.

I was bemused by this clever map of the transit system of Gotham City where Batman lives.

I liked the way the city blocks are quilted in a grid and the water ways  are quilted in waves.

In the MODERN category I absolutely loved the bed size quilts titled Friendly Forest and Jack.

It is very humbling to realize that Friendly Forest was made by one of our junior  guild members, thirteen years old!

The quilt titled simply Jack could equally be categorized as traditional but the print fabrics are from the Aborginal culture, giving a very unique feel to the results. It is named for the nephew who requested it. He picked out the fabrics from his aunt's stash and after being a bit skeptical about his selections she realized he had good taste!

The NATURE end cap featured pine cones, leaves, and feathers but also shells and a pewter scarab beetle, in colors one would expect from nature. 

But my favorite quilt in this category was a black and white baby quilt. I was fascinated by the detailing in each of the woodland creatures, a bear, a fox, a bunny and a large featured owl.

All in all, it was a fun two days – tiring, but a lot of fun. I do not think I will put away my winnings just yet. I am leaving them out displayed on the dining room table to admire for a bit longer. Now it's time to have more fun linking up with Let's Bee Social #195.