The Paisley Peacock was made and quilted by Bethanne Nemesh. Bethanne won $5,000 for Outstanding Traditional Quilt from Janome.
Paisley Peacock was inspired by a henna tattoo that Bethanne got at the beach one summer; the tattoo had swirling paisley designs. She was also inspired by a rich ribbon edged sari fabric from India.
The quilt took close to 200 quilting hours, but that only tells a part of the story. The design time for the quilt was also significant, but most of her work was with the edge treatment. Bethanne is known for doing specialty edges on her quilts. The handmade edge for Paisley Peacock is a combination of beads enclosed in a sleeve of fabric and individually made tabs placed carefully around the quilt. The edge itself took an additional 150 hours to complete.
Bethanne was “quite surprised” that Paisley Peacock won one of the top prizes at Road 2016. Winning Outstanding Traditional Quilt was an enormous honor for her, “especially since a huge number of entries at the show were traditional.”
What did Bethanne do with her prize money? In August 2016, Bethanne sustained a hip injury that required extensive surgery. She is still not fully recovered and so trying to maintain her 2,500 square foot front yard garden of perennials has been challenging. Winning this prize allowed her to hire a professional landscaper to design and execute a drastic –yet still beautiful– scaled down version of her front garden.
After achieving this honor, Bethanne hopes to continue to push herself creatively making meaningful show quilts. She is currently working on two quilts that she really feels strongly about. Bethanne also hopes to travel and teach at a west coast show in the near future.
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27 year old Brittany Williams attended Road with her mom, Charlotte. They live in Riverside, California and both mom and daughter are quilters. They belong to the Raincross Quilt Guild in Riverside who told them about the show. Brittney had been quilting for about 6 months when she and her mom attended their first Road to California. It was Charlotte and a friend of Brittany’s that encouraged Brittany to start quilting. Quilting was a natural activity for Brittany as she was already used to doing handiwork like knitting and crocheting. She loves quilting and has already made 7 quilts including a nine patch and a disappearing nine patch. “When I grow up, I want to be a quilter,” Brittany remarked.
In 1985, Carolee was just 23 years old and a new mom when she started her first business promoting decorative or “tole” painting. She taught classes and created patterns for tole painting books published by Provo Craft. When a set of twins arrived, Carolee started self-publishing her own books. As her family grew, Carolee was a stay-at-home mom who kept her small business going by continuing to write books. She tried to attend two conventions a year to meet her customers and outreach with her products.
When her last child was born in 1995, Carolee became a pioneer in the new trend of scrapbooking. She noticed that there wasn’t any clip art available to embellish photographs of special events in a person’s life. So, using her folk art background, she created a CD-Rom of scrapbooking clip art. This led to starting her own scrapbook paper line, Carolee’s Creations. Her designs and concepts revolutionized the scrapbook industry and eventually included stationary products as well.
The San Fernando Valley Quilt Association is actually made up of two quilt organizations: a day group, the Valley Quiltmakers Guild and an evening group. Their 180 members come from all over the San Fernando Valley, meeting monthly at LIFEhouse Church in Northridge,California.
Philanthropy is a big part of this association. Their Quilters 4 Others (aka Q4O) meets monthly to tie quilts for various charities including Ahead with Horses, Save the TaTas (recovering cancer victims), Lutheran World Relief, Northridge Hospital Pediatric Trauma Unit, Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, Rotaplast (to go with the doctors who repair cleft palates in South America), and for returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In addition, this group also makes placemats for Meals on Wheels and the Valley Interfaith Council, beanie babies and scarves for Operation Gratitude and heart pillows for those who have had heart surgery at the Veterans Association Hospital in West Los Angeles. These pillows act as a way to counter the pressure of the incision for the heart surgery.
This year’s Opportunity Quilt is Autumn Garden and was on display at Road 2016.
