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Posts Tagged ‘Award Winning Quilts’

So You Want To Make A Winning Quilt- Best Use of Color

Saturday, June 30th, 2018

Melissa Sobotka was awarded $1,000 by Sponsor, Carriage Country Quilts, for Santorini Sunset, in the category, Best Use of Color, at Road to California 2018.Best Use of Color Quilt  Winning Quilt  Quilt Show

Melissa Sobotka is a familiar winner at Road to California. She won Best of Show in 2016 for her amazing art quilt, Silk Road Sampler.Best of Show Quilt  Winning Quilt  Quilt Show Melissa became a quilter by accident. She was making some banners for her church when a friend suggested to Melissa that if she put some batting in the banners and added some stitching, the banners would become “art quilts.” At the time, Melissa had no clue what an art quilt was. She did some research and was fascinated by the art form so she got some scraps of fabric and taught herself.Best Use of Color Quilt  Winning Quilt  Quilt Show Santorini Sunset was inspired by a trip Melissa took to Greece. She went specifically to Santorini to capture a photo at sunset. Melissa found the town to be “so picturesque.” She wanted to give a different perspective to Santorini so she changed  her original image to be abstract. The quilt was “the most difficult quilt” Melissa has made. That is why it took almost 5 months to complete. Why was it such a challenge? “In abstract there is a lot left to the imagination or implied.  Sewing definitive lines of shapes that have a blurred boundaries becomes a challenge when quilting.” Melissa had entered Santorini Sunset in another quilt show before Road 2018. In her words, the quilt “seemed to be the wallflower at the party; no one noticed it.” So she was both in “shock” and “delighted” that it was recognized for Best Use of Color at Road to California. Melissa intends to use her prize money with her project of building a new studio. What can we expect from Melissa in the future? “I’m chomping at the bit waiting for the studio to be complete so I can get back to work.  I have so many ideas ready to go.  I see continuing with the process I have used but also experimenting with new ideas and techniques.  Always learning and growing as an artist is my goal.” To learn more about Melissa and her work, please visit her website.        ]]>

A Self-Taught, Hand Quilting Winner

Wednesday, June 13th, 2018

Andrea Stracke won $2,500 for Best Hand Quilting from Sponsor, World of Quilts Travel, for Aragonithand quilting

It was just a matter of time before Germany native, Andrea Stracke, would discover quilting. She had always been interested in trying delicate, hand crafting. Growing up, she spent time experimenting with knitting, crocheting, embroidery, calligraphy, miniature painting and glass grinding.  In 1989, Andrea found a book about patchwork quilts in her favorite book store and from that moment on, she was “hooked.”hand quilting Andrea shares that she is “completely self-taught” when it comes to her quilting. She learned through books and by trial and error. In 1995, she started specializing in making whole cloth and strippy quilts in different sizes after coming across Barbara Chainey’s book, “The Essential Quilter” in 1993.  She said that book “made my heart sing.” Aragonit was inspired by jewelry made in the Belle Époque Era (1884-1914). Andrea said she loves “the beautiful ornaments and scrollwork used for brooches, pendants and other pieces.” Andrea spent 600 hours working on Aragonit. During that time, Andrea became “completely sure” that she was dedicated to hand quilting intricate and detailed hand quilting patterns. She learned on this project the importance of adding intense background quilting to make the main motifs stand out clearly.hand quilting It was early morning in Germany when Andrea received the email from Road to California that was sent at 10:00 PM Pacific Coast Time.  At first, she couldn’t believe what she was reading on her computer. When the realization sunk in, she “shed some tears of joy.” What did Andrea do with her prize money? She bought some fabric, batting and thread to create new quilts. She plans to use the remainder of the money to pay the shipping costs to enter a few more quilt shows in the future. In the future, Andrea plans to keep on making whole cloth and strippy quilts – her real passion. Andrea admits that her designs “are becoming more and more detailed and intricate” and she knows that there is much for her to learn and apply to her upcoming work. “Inspiration is everywhere.” You can learn more about Andrea Stracke on her website.    ]]>

2018 Marie White Masterpiece Award

Tuesday, February 20th, 2018

Marie White Masterpiece Award winner, Pat Holly, received $7,500 for Turkish Treasures from Sponsor Road to California, Inc.

The Marie White Masterpiece Award is the second highest cash award given out during Road to California’s annual quilt contest. Named for the mother of Road to California founder, Carolyn Reese, Marie White was very active in the quilting and doll making world until she passed away seven years ago, six weeks shy of her 93rd birthday. Marie and Carolyn established The Fabric Patch fabric store in 1981. Their store was featured in the third issue of American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine, naming it one of the top thirty stores in the United States. Marie’s specialty was doll making. She also loved working with ribbon embroidery and crazy quilting.

The 2018 winner of this prestigious award was Pat Holly for her quilt, Turkish Treasures.

Pat has been sewing all of her life. Her mother sewed her family’s clothes and the Kenmore sewing machine was always available for Pat to use. Pat began with sewing doll clothes and clothes for herself. When her sister had her first child in 1978, Pat found a Vogue pattern and made a baby quilt for her new niece. Later, in the early 1980’s, her sister took classes at a local quilt shop and she shared with Pat what she had learned. Not long after, Pat found quilt guilds and took lots of workshops from many great teachers. What inspired Pat’s winning design In 2012, she went on a wonderful tour of Turkey with the Costume Society of America. They saw so many amazing palaces, mosques, ancient cities and even had a balloon ride in Cappadocia! Pat took many many photographs on that trip and it was from one of those images that she designed Turkish Treasures. It took Pat two years to complete the quilt. While she was in Turkey, she saw ladies making needle lace called “oya.” Oya is a cross between tatting and macrame, done with just one large eyed tapestry type of sewing needle.  Because Pat believes that the edge of a quilt is a great place to do something special, she decided to make the edging for Turkish Treasures using oya needle lace. She found some books that described the technique but it was difficult for Pat to make. She ended up watching YouTube videos in Turkish and was able to learn by watching! When Pat received the email telling her she had won, she was “absolutely thrilled.” Remarked Pat, “There are so many amazing quilts in competitions now that it is always such an honor to receive an award.” What is Pat going to do with her prize money? She is leaving soon for a textile tour of India and is confident that she will be able to find a few treasures there to bring home with her!! Wen she returns from her trip, Pat plans on continuing to work on samples for the Holly Girls Quilt Retreat that she, her sister, and Sue Nickels host each year in September. And she added, “I’m always thinking about the next big quilt I want to make!” Congratulations Pat Holly on winning road 2018’s Marie White Masterpiece Award.]]>

Road 2018 Best of Show

Wednesday, February 7th, 2018

Congratulations to Claudia Pfeil  who won $10,000  from Sponsor Gammill Quilting Systems for her quilt, Fractal Claudia Pfeil is a quilting pioneer in Germany.

She made her first quilt in 1984 without the now common rotary cutter and rulers. As she remember, “There was much “trial and error” as I taught myself the tricks of making templates and seams.” This quilt ended up being her only large sewing project for many years. Claudia studied textile design at the University of Applied Sciences Niederrhein. This work drew her interests into different directions. She got the “quilting fever” –  but didn’t know it at the time. In 1992, with the birth of her first son, Julian, Claudia decided that the work she had done in the textile arena would go in a new direction.  She started by going through her drawers and bins, uncovering  her “hoarded” treasures that she had been collecting over the years.  One of her treasures that she found were handwoven fabric pieces that she made while attending university, on a 16 shaft loom. She was dedicated to giving those 30×30 cm (almost 12 inch) blocks a new “right to exist“ in a quilt! Because she didn’t have the “proper ‘yarn’ for sewing,” Claudia went to the local sewing shop where she was introduced to her first rotary cutter, mat and quilting ruler.  Content with her  “learn by doing” approach, those experimental times gave her the courage to improvise.  She took her finished quilt to the sewing shop and immediately, the owners asked her to teach them her technique!!  Looking back, Claudia says she has “to smile about my self confidence without having any clue!” It didn’t take long for Claudia to start buying and selling fabrics; first in the basement of her house, then in 1997, renting a small location in town where she opened Quilt & Co.  In 2002, the shop was moved to a larger – and current – location in Krefeld, Ritterstrasse. The fall of 2004 totally changed Claudia’s world. She had brought Quilt & Co.  as a vendor to the French quilt show, Carrefour du Patchwork. Next to her booth was APQS. She played everyday on their Millennium quilting machine and was hooked with longarm quilting. She purchased her longarm machine in 2005, finding a way to “express myself through fabric and thread that was exciting, addictive and fun.” Claudia says free-motion quilting gives her the freedom–“like an eagle flying over the mountains”– to play with spaces and quilting designs. When Claudia begins a project, she likes to work with a theme. Themes challenge her, get her out of her comfort zone, and start her thinking “out of the box.” Her theme for Fractal was kaleidoscopes. Claudia searched Google for pictures of kaleidoscopes and endless links introduced her to fractals. She admits that before then, she really didn’t know what fractals were.  She became fascinated by their dynamic , vitality and vibrancy. Before falling asleep at night, she would collect dreams and visions of her theme and began thinking about how she could translate her visions into realistic designs. She began by preparing circles in different sizes out of white Dupioni silk on freezer paper templates. Next, she drew designs on to the circles, first with pencil, then if she was satisfied, she drew them with a black pen (Faber-Castell)  filling in the details and painted them with acrylic colors              (Stewart Gill) and Tsukineko ink pens. Playing and creating  the layers is one of the main parts of the quilt. She tried to enhance this impression with the choice and placement of quilting designs. Using 100 wt black silk thread, it took several backtracking stitches around the outlines of the circle designs to repeat and enhance the  black drawing lines. The design was couched with different yarns ( for example Razzle Dazzle and Yli ) around all outlines, respecting again the different layers to create a foreground and a background. Her final touch? 30,000 Swarovski Crystals!!! Claudia says her entire process took approximately 10 months to complete. Besides learning about fractals, Claudia also learned by trial and error how to use mixed types of ink and paints and pens while making Fractal. She commented, “I learned that it is hard to get rid of pencil drawings on silk.” When she received the news that Fractal had won Best of Show, it was around 5:00 AM in the morning in Germany. Claudia said she woke up “unintentionally” to check the time on her cellphone and saw that she had received several messages on Facebook telling her of her award. She went downstairs, opened her email and saw the official announcement from Road. Claudia said she was “shocked” when she found out she had won. Where does Claudia go from here with her quilting? “I am working on my new project for 2018. I am bit behind my own time schedule this time. But the quilt is loaded on the machine and waiting to be quilted. In May, I will travel to the USA  to teach at several APQS Showrooms in Raleigh, Louisville, Austin and Dallas. In November, I will be at Quilt Festival in Houston and…. I am soooo hoping to be back at Road to California next year!” Congratulations Claudia Pfeil for your outstanding entry.  

     

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Innovative Winning Quilts

Friday, October 27th, 2017

in·no·va·tive  (ˈinəˌvādiv/) adjective Featuring new methods; advanced and original.

These four quilt artists were each awarded First Place and $1,000  for their innovative fiber art skills at Road 2017:
Innovative, Large
The A-E-I-O Ewes by Janet Stone.

Sponsored by BERNINA of America, Janet says,  “I had to design this quilt after the title came to me first, while lying in bed one night. The color fabrics were all hand dyed by my very talented friend, Gilbert Muniz. It was originally going to be just a wall quilt, but it demanded to be bit larger. This is the 16th quilt in my alphabet quilt series.”

Innovative, Wall, Appliqué 

PROUD PEACOCK by Mrs. Antonia Hering

Antonia is a resident of The Netherlands. She came up with her original design because she always wanted to make a quilt with a peacock.  Antonia said, “The challenge was to use very tiny stitches. It had to be a special one, different from all I had seen. Another challenge was the hand-piecing of the tiny triangles in the spirals.The rest of the quilt is inspired by old catalogs from the 1800’s showing all kinds of long forgotten crafts.” Leo9 Textiles sponsored this winning quilt. 

Innovative, Wall, Other

Bailando en la Noche (Dancing in the Night) by Shelley Stokes

Kerry’s Kollectibles sponsored this winning quilt. Shelley describes her innovative design that “the colorful medallions evoke the swirling skirts of Mexican folk dancers under an exuberant night sky. Just as music and dance add delight to our lives, hand stitching breathes life into the painted images. The shapes in the medallions were painted on whole cloth black fabric with Shiva Artist’s Paintstiks. All surface stitching was done by hand with pearl cotton threads. It appears to be appliqué, but it’s not.”

  Innovative, Wall, Pieced 

Five Turns of the Wheel by Sandra F. Peterson

This quilt was designed using Sandra’s original “fractured wheels” because she was thinking about a design that fills in between circles.  For Sandra, “the idea of playing with colors that move through the circles with an imaginary turn of each wheel was intriguing. Clockwise, follow yellow starting with the lower left corner circle and watch it move through the circles and burst out and consume the center circle.” Thank you Primitive Gatherings for sponsoring Sandra’s winning entry.

What innovative designs are you working on?

     
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Road 2017 Best Use of Color Winning Quilt

Wednesday, September 20th, 2017

Blue Anemone. One week to create the pattern, then one month to hand paint the whole cloth design and finally 4 1/2  months to quilt and finish. The quilting was done on her Innova Stationary Longarm and Janome Horizon 8200 Sewing machine. The biggest challenge of this quilt for Andrea was creating the subtle nuances of the color changes with the lights and shadows within the flower. What inspired Andrea’s winning design? “I always loved the deep colors of blue anemone poppies and I knew that one day I would create one in fabric. I was visiting my mom in Oregon and one day we went to one of her favorite nurseries. They had some of the most beautiful red, orange and blue anemones growing. This quilt is based on one of those photographs.” Andrea has been sewing since she was a child and had created a number of other needle crafts projects over the years. Her quilting journey began when she moved to Texas and joined a stitching group as a way to meet people with similar interests. One of the women in the group was a quilter and she convinced everyone to make a round robin style picnic quilt.  After that project, Andrea wanted to make an applique quilt. She taught herself the technique from an applique book. When she finished that quilt,  Andrea felt she had officially “caught the quilting bug” and has been creating in fabric ever since. Blue Anemone was awarded $1,500.00 for Best Use of Color by sponsor, Carriage Country Quilts. With her prize money, Andrea took her husband out to dinner, bought some fabric and put the rest in the bank. Andrea hopes to continue her journey to create realistic botanical imagery with fabric, thread and paint. She says that “with each quilt I make, I try to challenge myself to hone my artistic voice.” Andrea also looks forward to teaching her techniques at quilt shows, retreat style workshops, and at local quilt guilds. To learn more about Andrea, you can follow her on her personal and business Facebook Pages.]]>

International Quilter A Big Winner

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017

Hiroko Miyama creates beautiful, award winning quilts from her home in Tokyo, Japan.

She says that she was a “born handicraft maker.” When her younger son entered elementary school, Hiroko thought it was a good time to start something new. At that time, hand quilting was just getting popular in Japan and she thought, this was it! After she began hand quilting, she stopped doing her other handicrafts like knitting, dress making and embroidering. Hiroko confesses that she has been “addicted to machine quilting for 8 years.” Most of Hiroko’s designs are her interpretations of beautiful scenery around Nagano, Japan, and of flowers and fairy tales. Recently, her husband Mosanobu Miyama, has collaborated on some of her designs. At Road 2017, Hiroko won first place in the Art Human Image category for her quilt, Lily. Hiroko received $1,000 from sponsor, Maywood Studio/EE Schenck Company for her winning entry. For this piece, Hiroko wanted to depict her granddaughter Natsumi as an elegant lady when she came to visit her cottage. Hiroko remarked that the resulting snow tanned face on Natsumi was not her original intention but that it didn’t hinder the results. It took 4 months (or about 800 hours) for Hiroko to make and quilt Lily. This project challenged Hiroko to harmonize the quilt with her original machine embroidery. She designs, “punches,” (creates the embroidery data) and then does the actual embroidery. Hiroko reported that “300 hours were required for embroidery only.” When she heard she had won, “I and my husband celebrated by drinking a couple of mug of beer.” They travelled from Japan to see the quilt at Road 2017. “I really enjoyed the show.” What did Hiroko do with her prize money? “I bought fabrics and threads, of course!” For the near future, Hiroko plans on having Lily displayed at AQS Quiltweek in Grand Rapid and then on to Fall Paducah. Congratulations, Hiroko, on another winning design.  ]]>

So You Want To Make A Winning Quilt- Excellence in Hand Quilting

Thursday, July 27th, 2017

Linda Roy won $1,500 for Aztec Sunset from Sponsor, World of Quilt Travel

Linda Roy’s quilting journey began in 1988 when her husband had a job transfer from Southern California to Conway, Arkansas.  Shortly after moving, Linda saw a program on television on vintage and newer quilts that introduced her to quilting. Then, a little while later, Linda met one of her new neighbors, Irma Gail Hatcher, who just happened to be an award-winning quilter. Irma invited Linda to join a small group that met monthly at her home and then to the Arkansas Quilt Guild. Linda said, “It was a pleasure to spend time with woman of all ages coming together for the pleasure of creating something beautiful.” Linda made her first quilt when her youngest son was three. She found that she could keep an eye on her son while he played and do her hand work at the same time.  She was hooked on hand quilting with that first original quilt and now hand quilting is her passion. The design and color for Aztec Sunset was inspired by Mayan Ruins. Linda designed her quilt using graph paper. Since Linda made this quilt for herself, she felt that she had total freedom to make it “outside the box.” Two of her favorite large tomato red scraps were utilized in the quilt along with other fabrics in her stash creating a four-block design with a spiraling border.  Each quadrant has different but similar fabrics. The tea dyed muslin and stripes are the unifying fabrics.  All the triangles are hand appliqued along with the bias bars.  Linda feels that the additional hand embroidery on the quilt gives a little more importance to the hand appliqued triangle shapes. Aztec Sunset took approximately one year to complete. A hoop was used for the hand quilting, working on one piece at a time.  Linda remarked that after deciding on the design and color, “hand quilting is my favorite part of the quilt… (it is) very relaxing.” Learning about her award, Linda said she “truly couldn’t believe I had won such a prestigious award.  Stunned would be a good word to describe how I felt and still feel.” She plans on using her prize money to replenish her fabric, thread, batting and various quilting needs not to mention that the “worn out chair I sit in to sew could use being replaced too!” Linda’s thoughts on her experience in creating a winning quilt is motivational for other quilters as well: “This award encourages me to follow my heart without fear of the quilting police.  Sometimes it can work out!”]]>

So You Want To Make A Winning Quilt: Outstanding Traditional Quilt

Saturday, July 8th, 2017

From The Bride’s Trousseau made and quilted by Margaret Solomon Gunn won $5,000 from sponsor Janome for Outstanding Traditional Quilt at Road 2017

Margaret Solomon Gunn is a talented quilter. She won not one but two prizes at Road to California 2017!!!

Margaret won Best of Show for The Twisted Sister

and Outstanding Traditional Quilt for From The Bride’s Trousseau.  

What inspired Margaret to make this winning design? In 2011, she designed and quilted a 40” whole cloth.  This was her first attempt at the design process.  Of that experience, Margaret says, “To this day, it is unbound!”  The design for From the Bride’s Trousseau originated with this first quilt’s design.  It underwent at least a dozen modifications to reach the final form that was quilted for the 2015 finished quilt. The current design is larger, and more complicated.  From the Bride’s Trousseau is a 1/8 symmetrical whole cloth quilt, meaning that it was designed on a 22.5-degree wedge, then copied and mirrored to create the pattern.  It is quilted in silk threads.  Margaret’s favorite areas of the quilt are the Sashiko-inspired fills.  They are quilted with a marked grid and give the quilt a very traditional feeling. It took Margaret about a year to finish the quilt. What did she learn along the way? Says Margaret, “I have this ability to make simple tasks take WAY longer than they should!  This is mostly because I don’t just work on one quilt at a time.  I frequently have at least 3 quilts in various stages of construction, quilting or finishing at any given time. I learned that quilting with colored thread creates a beautiful effect, but it’s challenging.  I also learned that I appreciate taking the time to make a quilt double-sided (and it helps identify those pesky little areas that need fixing before a judge finds them!). Margaret was “surprised” to know that this quilt had also won a prestigious award at Road 2017.  She related that From the Bride’s Trousseau “had been out and to several shows the last 2 years.  Sometimes it does nothing, and other times, it surprises me.  During the quilting journey, I have just learned to appreciate when the quilts do win, as nothing is ever certain.  I do the best I can do, and then it is out of my hands.  It is wonderful when judges recognize my efforts.” After winning two awards, Margaret is certainly not resting on her accomplishments. She recently finished a book with AQS, along with two other self-published books. She teaches at select quilting shows and writes for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine.  In her “spare time,” she even still quilts for clients (one of her client’s quilts was also entered in Road 2017). And of course, she is working on the coming year’s show quilts. All in all, Margaret says, “It’s a fun life!”]]>

So You Want To Make A Winning Quilt: Outstanding Modern Quilt

Tuesday, May 30th, 2017

Z is for Zoey won Outstanding Modern Quilt at Road to California 2017. Sponsor Riley Blake Designs awarded $5,000 to maker, Mary Kerr and quilter, Karen McTavish.

Family and quilting goes hand in hand for Mary Kerr. She grew up in a family of quilters and her latest winning quilt, Z is for Zoey, was made for her granddaughter, Zoey Rose, Mary’s “very own mini-me.”

A Road 2016 faculty member and curator of the special exhibit, Quilt As Desired, Mary has a special affection for vintage designs. She wanted this piece to reflect the convergence of the past….her love of vintage with the excitement of the future….Zoey’s place in the modern world.

Z is for Zoey was inspired by a a single long strip from the 1930s. Tongues of fabric had been hand appliquéd with black thread on both sides of a muslin strip. It was never incorporated into a quilt and at one point someone even cut out one of the fabrics to reuse. The quilt married Mary’s “love of vintage textiles with the freshness of the Modern quilt aesthetic.”

Mary thought long and hard about the design. Once she decided how to create the “Z,” the top came together in just a couple of days. Then, according to Mary, Karen McTavish “added the perfect background with her distinctive lace quilting.”

While both Karen and Mary were “very pleased” that Z for Zoey won Outstanding Modern Quilt, Mary says, “My Zoey takes full credit for the win!”

For the near future, Mary plans to continue to teach, write books and hopefully inspire others to work with vintage fabrics.

You can learn more about Mary on her website.

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