Quilters Show Their Stuff

A quilt show yesterday was one of the day's highlights. As someone who's helped organize a show, I have a real appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into putting one on. The Eastern Iowa Heirloom Quilters did a great job: lots of lovely quilts, vendors with gorgeous fabrics, and education sessions (and very fun award ribbons—take note in several of the photos below—another use for yoyos). Below are a few of the many terrific quilts: apologies for not crediting the quilters and apologies, too that these photos don't really do the quilts justice.

The quilt above had fabulous colors, a super-sized, red rickrack border, and was reversible!

This Amish-inspired quilt took advantage of that black background and bright, solid fabrics to make the colors pop. Over and over I was drawn to quilts with black backgrounds: I've only made one, but it's one of my favorites. It's tough to work on in the evenings, however.


Love the shape of these flowers—kind of a Dr. Seuss-feel about them. I'm excited about trying more applique.

I adore scrappy quilts. There is, of course, something soothing about a quilt that's tidy and neat, designed with colors that repeat throughout, but I love the spirit of this kind of quilt.

The little white blocks in the four-patches unify it and carry your eye, keeping the variety from being overwhelming. I'm not a major fan of these fabrics, but love the overall feel.


This green and pink beauty follows the same philosophy as the previous quilt (although the larger blocks, white background and solid white sashing unify it even more). This one is fresh and crisp.

Two (different) thirties-fabrics quilts with fabulous inner borders.


A simple quilt that makes great use of print (note the corners) and has inventive quilting. It's hard to see, but the quilter created trowels and spades in the brown garden-block rectangles.


And this was a totally fun kid's quilt: charming and so friendly.



As someone who loves to "hear" what quilters have to say, I always enjoy the stories people write about their quilts. One of my favorite stories was a woman who said she'd bought fabric to make her granddaughter a quilt, but she saved it until her granddaughter was old enough to do her own laundry, because the girl's mother always bleached the heck out of everything and she didn't want the quilt to be ruined.

And finally, I liked this quilt a lot, and then liked it even more when I read the name: Midnight in Barbie's Dream House.