AQS Daytona and QuiltCon

   This is our first Maine winter-- some of my new readers may be surprised San Francisco Stitch Co. is currently based in the mountains about 40 miles from Canada-- let’s just say we are from SFO and it’s really hard to change a company name!

    To this point, it has been an easy winter, but we are now completely buried. It’s hard to think of all this whiteness melting before August. When I married a mountain man, I knew we’d end up at elevation, so all I asked for was a week in Florida every winter!

     And what a week! I rented a condo near Daytona Beach with two of my friends. Knowing I probably needed the sun and waves more than they did, they let me have the Oceanside bedroom and this is what I woke up to every morning!

     The temperatures were in the 80s all week. Even the locals were talking about it. We had three days of total relaxation before the AQS Daytona show started. What a beautiful routine. Got up in the morning, walked the beach, went out for breakfast, a little hand stitching on the balcony, pool time, out for dinner, another walk on the beach, British mysteries at night, bed and repeat. Oh, and key lime pie all day.

     On the fourth day, the AQS Daytona show started. The first day we did vendors and show. I’m going to keep my opinions to myself, except to say that the winners circle is the same one we’ve seen for the past few years. The show seemed overall very quiet, but there were more vendors than last year. And there was a lack of machine embroidery which is a crying shame. Here are a few non winners I enjoyed-- you can just Google the winners online. I left the cards with the quilt name and artist is the photos-- just click on the photo to enlarge and read them.

This is my friend Tere standing next to her piece in the show! She did an amazing portrait of a man who is know at a local Renaissance Faire in Massachusetts for dressing up as a druid. The Celtic knot border is incredible... one of many quilts that deserved to ribbon.

     Not quite enough pictures of all the beauty that was on display! But pictures don't do them justice anyway. So I will say, if you have never been to one of these AQS shows, you need to go at least once in person.

    The second day was a class with Cynthia England, three time winner of Best in Show at Houston,  making this heron. I give her a lot of credit for writing a pattern for this, and so well. 

    My friends were with me, and we just had a blast-- Cynthia has quite the sense of humor and really broke this process down to make it as easy as possible. I ended up buying a rooster kit as well. I hope I finish them! LOL.

    And the last day was a longarm class with Bethanne Nemesh, one of my favorite longarm artists and a great teacher as well. The class gave me confidence I can "do it" if I can just get on top of some of the technical problems I have such as a completely disassembled longarm lying against a wall in my studio-to-be.

     So that was it for Daytona. Now comes a bit of serendipity. To fly to Orlando during what it turns out is school vacation week for most of the northeast is a pricey proposition. We decided to fly to Atlanta, and then drive down about six hours for 1/3 of the price. One of my extremely intelligent and watchful friends discovered QuiltCon was in Atlanta the day we had to drive back. (Always travel with people smarter than you.) I’ve always wanted to go, but never made a point of it-- how perfect-- we had four hours there.

    Again, I’m not going to share my opinion of the show, but compared with the AQS show which was quiet, you could feel the electricity in the air. Bu let’s keep in mind this show is once a year and AQS has five shows. Here again are a few of my favorite non-winners. (You can see the winners on line.)

I had a wrong idea of the show which I thought was going to be a bunch of young women trying to re-create the Abstract Expressionism paintings of the 1950s in fabric. It was actually people of all ages making fiber art for every reason under the sun. 

QuiltCon had posted on the cards the artist's inspiration-- I believe AQS used to do this, but it was missing in Daytona. I really like to read about each piece.

Some were tributes to family, others were about color play, some had a sense of humor, others were serious. This one was an enlargement of a kid's drawing! You know, Picasso said he learned to paint like a master in four years, but it took a lifetime to learn how to draw like a child.

Timna Tarr is one my favorite quilters-- she is most famous for making realistic images from fabric squares, and just has a fabulous sense of humor in her work. I love this self-portrait called "I Woke Up Like This." On the surface it is funny, but also has some deeper meanings about life in 2023 for all of us!

This is also her piece-- I'm giving it my Best in Show. It is landscape "snapshots" of the Mount Holyoke range where she lives in Western Massachusetts. So expressive and beautiful, in every way!

    So there's a side by side of the two shows-- I am probably still an AQS girl, just for the sheer beauty of it. But if any of these shows is close to you, I wouldn't miss going. QuiltCon will surprise and inspire you.

     Then we hopped back on our flight-- my friends got off in Boston. I had to take a puddle jumper to Maine, and my connection was late, so I got bumped and had to stay overnight in a hotel. By this time, I was completely exhausted! This is the bush plane I have to rely on to get me anywhere these days.

    After the last-minute hassle, my wanderlust has been satiated for quite some time! I am back at my desk, fully inspired, looking out at my beautiful Sugar Meadow and creating tiny machine embroidered winter animals like I was born to do.

xox

Carol