This past weekend was our Western North Carolina Quilters Guild’s biannual Garden of Quilts show, and what a show it was! The amount of work and volunteers it takes to put it on is staggering, but the inspiration is worth the effort. I don’t know how many quilts were on display, but it had to be over 150 in sizes from small wall hangings up to large bed quilts. There were traditional pieced quilts, modern art quilts, whimsical applique, and ones with intensive hand work. Then there were vendors with fabrics and notions, a used bookstore and a gift gallery. Today I’ll show a bit of it, but there is just no way to show the entirety of wealth of talent on display. First I have to crow a bit, my Koi Pond won a First Place ribbon in its category, and I was thrilled.

The ribbon committee did a wonderful job this time, the tops have a paper-pieced quilt block in ribbon colors. I can’t imagine how long it took to make the number required for the show.

The things that caught my eye this time were the ones with interesting quilting mostly custom work. This modern quilt was made by Natalie Rockley and won first in its class. The crazy piecing looks like it was difficult with many curved seams, and each section has a different quilting design. She did this on a domestic machine, and won Best Domestic Machine Quilting special award.

Here’s a close up of the quilting. Amazing work.

This medallion quilt called Southwest Star was made by Jan Mott, and won first place in its category. Note how the quilting in the white background creates a continuous design. The green ribbon was awarded by the Carolina Mountain Longarm Association for outstanding longarm quilting.

Each diamond was quilted individually with different designs.

Lois Davis made this amazing Winter Star Wedding Ring quilt, winning a second place in its category.

The piecing is fabulous, and the custom quilting put it over the top.

Putting brights on black is always striking, and master applique artist Sue Marra won a second place for her gorgeous butterfly garden she called Flourishing.

The quilting was all custom work with ruler work and feather medallions. It was hard to photograph, but I hope you get the idea here.

This small quilt was made by Barb Boatman and had an amazing amount of thread work. It is called Yellow Fields with Blue Trees and is a memory quilt of her grandfather’s farm. It won Honorable Mention.

Sorry that this picture came out a bit blurry, but you can still see the amazing matchstick quilting in the horizontal rows on the right. The stitching rows are about a quarter-inch apart.

The quilting on the section on the lower left is done with decorative stitches and ditch stitches.

There were several quilts that featured wool work. I loved this one that must have taken months to create. It is called Halloween on the Farm, and is wool applique over crazy patch backgrounds, created by Sheila Wright. It won first place in its category.

There was so much more, as is the usual for a guild sponsored quilt show no matter where it is. These shows are full of awe inspiring work, getting the viewer charged up to go home and create. I have so many ideas right now, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all I have in mind! It inspires me to learn a new technique, try something different, create something special. I can’t wait to get started! And I look forward to attending more shows presented by other guilds in the area.

Do you enjoy quilt shows? How have they inspired you?