Quilt Con Day One

Oh my gosh, I saw so many pretty things today, and I didn't make it even a third of the way through the quilt show! I have so many ideas for quilts! I have been planning to do a quilt for the guest room for so long, but haven't made the time to do it since it's for me, but now I am thinking I should do something other than what I had planned! Too many ideas....

Isn't this great? It's Drunkard's Path, which is a major PITA, but the glorious part of modern quilting is the minimalism, so instead of being an entire quilt of blood, sweat, and tears, it is a select few put to fantastic use! Guest room?

A couple beautiful blocks I saw:

I LOVE this one. They pieced the background first with those muted colors and then cut squares of it and sewed it with the white to make the star. Absolutely fantastic. This is one of my new thoughts for the guest room quilt.

I went to a lecture all about improvisational quilting - well, it was really the lecturer taking us through the details of her new book that is debuting at QuiltCon which is about improvisational quilting - that was interesting. If only I was better at curves! Anyway, in her new book, she has improv "scripts", which are her version of "patterns" but which are supposed to indicate less rigidity of form. Anyway, one of the scripts is to do ovals and wedges, and there were some examples of quilts made using her script. Is this one not fantastic?

Not so much with the wedges, but the black-lined ovals are stunning.

Here are a couple of whole quilts that I thought were great:

The note called this a sunburst pattern - oh-so-pretty!!

The black makes this one so dramatic, despite somewhat subdued colors.

The note on this one said it was made with scraps.

This was in the lecture hall, versus the show, and my eye just kept being drawn to it. I was disappointed that the quilting wasn't more elaborate....

How fabulous is this one?!?

Similar to the previous, I love the specks of colored fabric peppered in the background.

And then there's this one. It is spectacular:

The picture does not properly convey the feelings it evokes in person - it is so haunting, disjointed and sad, with a smudge of hopefulness along the edges (or is that just me?). But so pretty.

I saw lots of examples of quilting to emulate:

I particularly like the curved vertical lines that are above the feather.

Pretty chain idea for a long strip.

Love the lines in the corner at the bottom, like the base of a roller coaster.

These stars mirror pieced stars found elsewhere on the quilt. Aren't they amazing? I wonder if it is programmed or free-motion?

Another mirror, in this case a Dresden Plate.

I think I will use this on my next quilt. Also, it would be pretty as a design on a wedding cake.

Okay, at this point, my phone died. In the last hour I was there, I saw at least five more quilts to document for later inspiration! Tomorrow I'm taking my phone charger with me.