Quilting In the Garden

September is a very quilt-y month for me. The weekend after my guild's quilt show (post for 9/19/17) and the same weekend as the Pleasanton Craft Fair (post for 10/3/17) my local nursery Alden Lane Nursery, hosted their annual outdoor Quilting in the Garden show. At Alden Lane, the quilts are hung on clothes lines strung between four-hundred-year old oak trees. They are put up by nursery staff and guild volunteers Saturday morning, taken down Saturday evening so as not to be exposed overnight, then put up again on Sunday morning and taken down one last time on Sunday evening. 

I was part of the Saturday take down; it is a lot of fun. Over the years of this annual event, the nursery has developed and fine tuned the process down to a science. With many hands, the raising and lowering of the quilts works as a well oiled machine. There are pulley and rope tenders, clothes pin attacher and removers, clothespin distribution and collection managers, quilt folders, baggers, labelers and pullers of the fleet of wagons that traverse the aisles of the garden outdoor area. 

Here is just a handful of my favorites sights from the show of close to 300 quilts on display. The quilts are by local artists and, in 2017, by Featured Artist Edydta Sitar, Guest Artist Debby Schnable, with Special Guests Alex Anderson and Jennifer Sampou. Here I am at the entry which sports a mini-pumpkin patch and quilts from some of the local artists.

Although not a quilt, I love this whimsical, welcoming cow at the entry.

Number 177 is a precision pieced Edyta Sitar creation. The mottled shadowing of the oak leaves from the tree branches do not lend themselves to awesome photos but they do create an inspirational outdoor ambience that is further enhanced as the breeze blows and the quilts flutter in gentle undulations.

I particularly liked the colors in Number 193, another Edyta Sitar quilt.

Notice how her background fabric was a subtle stripe, one that she was careful to consistently orient throughout.

You can never go wrong with a the color scheme of Number 91 Living in the Moment Blue and Yellow.

Number 33 was titled Triangle Bubble Dance. I am more of a traditionalist than a modern quilter but the asymmetry of this one drew me in.

I loved the bright colors of Number 13 titled 30 Spools of Thread.  Most of all, the dappled leaf shadows and arching branches of the old oaks represent the feel of the show.

I toured the show, making no purchases from the vendors. Then I sat down for my two hour time slot where I was a volunteer for my guild, selling tickets for our fund raising opportunity quilt. That was all well and good except that our booth was right next to the Sandy Klop booth of American Jane fabrics. Even though I had made purchases the previous day at the Pleasanton Craft Fair (10/3/17 post), I bought an eight piece stack of half yards of her pinstripes from the new line titled Merry-Go-Round. Aren't the colors luscious? I also find good stripes hard to come by so this was a serrendipitous find!

It had been a pleasant afternoon. I helped with the Saturday evening quilt take down. Then I waved bye to the friendly scarecrow as I exited. You can watch the 2015 YouTube video for a more extensive overview of the annual Alden Lane Nursery event Quilting in the Garden. I am linking up now with Let's Bee Social #197.