Daytona Beach Shows Off...

From a beautiful daybreak over the Atlantic to the fabulous quilts at the Ocean Center where the American Quilter's Society 2023 quilt show was held, Daytona was looking lovely. This is the view from our oceanside room at the Hilton. With the window open and the ocean breezes blowing, it was a most refreshing place to stay in February. And it was just across the street from the quilt show. By the way, the link above will take you to see all of the award winners from the show.

One masterful quilt after another was displayed in the exhibit area. I noticed that dogs, faces, and floral themes were the ones that drew me in. This is "Too Tired to Play" by David Taylor. The details in the pictorial applique quilt need to be seen up close. The artist was able to capture even the color variations in the floor.

This is Andrea Brokenshire's prize winner titled "Desert in Spring". Her photo-to-quilt entry is painted and thread enhanced. So realistic and beautiful.

"Singing Bird" by Cheryl Hoffner won Honorable Mention in the Wall Quilts- First Entry category. Lovely quilting on her domestic sewing machine.

Barbara Kilbourn translated her own photograph into this quilt titled "Feathered Friend." I like the variety of quilting designs she used.

Another face quilt! "Shape I'm In" was paper-pieced by Sue deVanny of Australia. The eyes and expression are so well done with fabrics that don't have high contrast. And she has an interesting mix of quilting patterns in the triangles.

Isn't "Mother Nature" compelling? It's the entry of Maria Macheca. As in "La Catrina" below, this quilt artist developed her fabric design from a photo, this one by Kevin Mazur. When I look at the color in this photo, I realize I did not nearly capture the depth of the green. This was in the Wall Quilts-Pictorial category.

Astonishing! Cindy Stohn's work "La Catrina" won second place in the Large Quilts-Moveable Machine Quilted category. She based her design on a photo by Jaimie Emery and completed it using raw-edge applique and collage methods along with free-motion quilting.

"Renew Anew" is by Elizabeth K. Ray. This quilt appealed to me as it feels so soothing with its simple straight lines. There is even straight-line grid quilting accomplished with the machine's walking foot. And the color shifting creates an interesting optical illusion.

Cherrywood Hand-dyed Fabrics conducts an annual quilt challenge. The theme for this year's exhibit was Graffiti. From among 360+ entries, the company selects some for traveling exhibits. Look closely at "Graffiti Dog" to  notice the words quilted into the background- love, tailwags, bones, and more. Such detail in a small quilt.  

"Lisa G. Was Here" has so many elements of a graffiti wall. Was Mona Lisa the artist? She's got the can of paint!

Lots of color and texture were combined in "Lucky".  Lots of imagination, too.

I was impressed with how many quilt artists captured the look of graffiti fonts in their entries. "Life" is an exuberant example. They all must have studied a lot of freight train cars.

I enrolled in a half-day class with Laura Heine of collage quilt fame. Each student selected a pattern and fabric kit for one of her quilt block designs. Then we spent class time learning her methods for using fusible applique methods to assemble the blocks. I'm a slow worker in classes and did not make the progress my classmates did, so I'll show a couple of their projects and share mine when it's completed. Isn't this turkey colorful and cute?

And the snail- this floral one is so appealing. The hardest part of the class was choosing which pattern to work on. Mine is a peacock. You can see one of the key tools Laura recommends for making collage quilts which is the Applique Fuse Mat. It's a step up from parchment paper and other non-stick surfaces.  Of course I bought one to use on this and future projects.

And did I mention the vendors? Fabrics, threads, notions, patterns, sewing machines, longarm quilting machines, jewelry, and much more. After two days at the quilt show, I found myself pretty bushed from all the walking and probably from the sensory overload, too! But I'd do it again tomorrow if I could. What a treat.