Local Quilt Guild Fun!

This month was my local quilt guild's 38th annual show... 

The Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod.

After my babies flew the nest about five years ago, I joined to broaden my horizons. I had pretty much been quilting in a closet for years, so with new friends, classes, and lectures, an entire new world opened up to me!

Artists always pick nice places to live, and Cape Cod is no exception, so there's a deep pool of talent here. If you have a Facebook account, you can visit the group page (link at the bottom), and they have photographed the ribbon winners--it is all "Viewer's Choice."

 The quilts that didn't win ribbons are as good as the ones that did,

so in this post I am going to share most of the Challenge quilts.

If you are ever stuck for an idea-- enter a challenge-- it really gets the creative juices flowing, and it is beyond fun to then see what everyone else has come up with. 

 This year's show theme was "By The Sea..." the challenge quilts had to be 24" square and rhyme with "sea." Other challenges have been more specific, but it depends on the artist if you find this freeing, or without enough framework! 

So sweet chickadees!

You can read the names on the tags... I like to give credit to the artist, but it's viewers choice, so they don't list the names-- it's a secret. (Unless you blog about making it--LOL) You find out after the voting ends. If you do see yours and would like credit, just comment below and I'd be happy to add it.

 I tried to get pictures of them all, but they were stacked three high in a busy corridor with vendors behind them, so I apologize to those I missed. (We changed show locations this year, and traded square footage for air conditioning.) 

Love this bird-- piecing, quilting... both as free as its name.

 There were three "Bees." All wonderful. 

Love these fabrics. Deb Strain's?

Can't you just feel the love for this pet? THOSE EYES!

"Gracie" by Diane McGuire

Someone is a fearless foundation paper piecer! Usually the sliced up backgrounds are so distracting to me, but this one is cleverly hidden by a lattice and tiny stippled quilting.

I'm pretty sure I know whose this is based on last year's winners! So fun to look at... all the tiny details are awesome. Love Alice and the rabbit... THAT. VELVET. OCTOPUS...

Garden fun. 

This is a really beautiful piece-- love the wave on the shore-- it's almost photographic. Says: "No words can express her contentment as she walk along the beach."

Ditto that.

Here's another bee. A BIG BEE. A beautiful bee!

Unluckily for me, it was right next to Mon Cheri--

like, you couldn't take your eyes off that bee.

Now I said before I didn't get a ribbon when I picked up my quilts.

But one trend I saw in the show was more machine embroidery like this ABC quilt. This is a guild that started off with not a lot of machine embroiderers, so I consider that a win. 

I was congratulating myself for being a good sport, and went on line to see the winners.

 A beach scene won first, not surprising for a Cape Cod quilt show...

The big bee got second... (there's mine next to it)

And WAIT, WHAT?

Apparently, my third place ribbon got separated from the quilt at checkout time! So all's well that ends well for another great show.

Be sure to check out the winners on Facebook-- I heavily photographed the show, but the ones they posted are better. 

Click the words below and give it a minute to load.

Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cape Cod Show Winners

In the next post, I am going to show you quilts with machine embroidery-- there's enough of them to get their own category next year, I bet!

And in the meantime, I am just back from World Quilt New England, so there will be more quilty goodness to come when I catch up! Thanks for reading.

xox

Carol