(pic heavy!) Four County Quilt Show

So I didn't write up a Sunday Stash yesterday, but I have a good reason :)  My friend, Abigail and I went to the Four County Quilt Show at the Frederick Fairgrounds yesterday.  It's not a modern quilt guild, but I was still able to find a lot of inspiration in the hundreds of quilts that were exhibited.  The show even almost made me a Batik convert.

Here are a few of the quilts that I really liked.  The uncaptioned pictures are quilts that I either forgot to snap a picture of the label, or the label was blurry and I couldn't make out the name.  If you see your quilt and would like me to add your name, or if you would like me to take down the picture please let me know.

Medium and Large Quilts

by Laura Schwartz

Laura Schwartz embroidery detail

Laura Schwartz quilting detail

The quilt by Laura Schwartz was one of the first quilts we saw.  Each block featured a different quilting style and the whole quilt had lovely machine embroidery pieces.

by Sharon Harris

by Cindy Leonard

Cindy Leonard quilting detail

Ms. Leonard had several quilts entered in the show, and each one was quilted beautifully with hand quilting.

zig-zag quilt

zig-zag quilt detail

Sorry I neglected to snap a pic of the tag on this one.  I love the effect of the monochromatic zig-zags!

Celtic design

great scrap buster

This awesome scrap buster was made out of 1.5" strips.  I remember the tag saying that she still had a bin full of leftovers.  It was a lot of fun picking out all the novelty scraps in the quilt :)

by Laura O'Neal

This quilt was HUGE.  I believe the tag says 90"x107".  The ladies who made these Civil War reproduction quilts hosted a 4 patch block swap, so there were 5 or 6 of the same block quilts on display.  This was by far the largest, and my favorite layout.  Also, I think this is a block we'll be making in the Penny Sampler class, so I am excited that I may be able to make a quilt like this in the future!

9 patch quilt

This last large quilt was my favorite (I voted for it to win best in show).  It's made of 9 patch blocks set on point.  I don't even think the picture does it justice, it was absolutely gorgeous, I'm sad that I can't make out the artists name on the tag :(

Lap, Mini and Art Quilts

by Susan McDavid

by Joan Watkins

paper pieced teapots

I think I'm having a love affair with 30s and 30s reproduction fabrics.  A lot of the vendors had 30s repros for sale.  I'm proud of myself for having good willpower and not buying any!

by Joan Watkins

by Cindy Leonard

Another beautiful example of hand quilting!

by Olga Schnde

As a gardener, I loved this one.  It even had little ladybug beads, and there was a lovely glistening spiderweb under the beet leaves!  I wish I would have taken some more shots of the details!

by Etta Stewart

Etta Stewart quilting detail

This Zentangle^TM, quilt was awesome, I especially loved the Zentangle^TM quilting.  

The awesome art quilt wall

by Libbi Driggers

This last quilt (which was actually the first quilt in the exhibit when you walked in) shows all that is "famous" about Frederick, MD.  If you've never been there it's a really great place to visit.  Also, if you watch Top Chef, it's where season 6 and Top Chef masters contestant Bryan Voltaggio's restaurant is ;)

This was the first quilt show I had the opportunity to attend.  It was definitely worth it, and it definitely won't be the last!  I even got to play with the Cadillac of embroidery machines.  There is no way I'd ever  be able to afford a $5,000 machine, but it was neat to see everything it could do.  A girl can dream right?!  One final little funny to wrap up the experience.  This was a sign at one of the vendor booths: