Doki Quilts: Pacific International Quilt Festival, Pt 1

I'm so lucky to have PIQF in my backyard (so to speak) every year--at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 10 minutes away. it's a Mancuso show and is held every October. just so happens that all my kids are born in October (granted there's a set of twins in there) so i haven't gone every year but i try to attend when i can.

i still remember bringing rolls of film with me and taking the pictures to costco to develop (i'm sure i have a couple of photo albums around for inspiration)! so much better now with digital cameras!

lots of safari themed quilts this year--which was great 'cos i took the twins on the first day and i could point the animals out when their interest started to flag (which was after 5 minutes :-) it was cute--i told them i was taking them to a "quilt show" which got them really excited until they got there and kept asking "where's the show"--i think they thought there would be singing & dancing quilts instead of quilts just boringly hanging on the walls. they did really well considering they're only 3 (almost 4 but it sounds more impressive this way) and max only touched one quilt and he was only trying to lift the curtain :-)

there were lots of "art quilts" this year which isn't my favorite--somehow i feel that painting on a quilt is "cheating" :-) i know i'm in the minority here. i prefer traditional piecing (with non-traditional fabrics) and there weren't a lot of those this year. but still--lots of eye-candy and inspiration.

i went with quilting friend ZM--it's so much fun to talk shop with someone who has quilting knowledge. (2 years ago when we went, some people thought we were docents 'cos we were talking so technically :-) now when i make a quilt for a friend, s/he always say, "how long did it take you to make this? i don't have the patience to do that." so it's funny how when we see these outstanding quilts, we say the same things, "how long did it take that quilter to make this? i wouldn't have the patience!" it's all relative.

here are some favorites (with more pix tomorrow).

i like this quilt of squares and circles--i can see myself doing something like this but with a different (brighter) palette.

this was such a great idea! if you can't read the description--the quilter cut out a piece of every single fabric she bought in 2008 and made the following quilt! i liked what she said, that "the exercise showed me that using fabric right away means that i get to enjoy it longer."

you can tell this is a Piece of Cake design right away! the applique fabrics are actually not that bright when you look closer but the red background really makes them pop.

this quilt has everything i like--lots of bright saturated colors and lots of white--and also circles!

more circles.

S for Sophie.

not crazy about the palette but would like to make something similar one day. maybe with Kaffe Fassett fabrics?

this diamond quilt is really cool. from faraway (2nd picture below) it's just a simple diamond quilt but close up, the lines are all wavy. can't quite figure out the construction technique. i know you can stack squares on top of each other and cut out wavy lines to piece together, but diamonds blow my mind.