Looking back on yesterday

and a day at a quilt show. 

Here's Joyce getting a close look.
 

This is the second time I have attended the Jacksonville Quiltfest  show in Jacksonville, FL  as part of being the bus trip coordinator for the quilt guild I joined.   There were 18 of us in total on board for the 2 hour trip.  Fewer than last year but a good group non-the-less.  Last year I traveled about the show on my own.  Some times traveling about on your own at your own pace is a good thing.  Last year I looked at the quilts, shopped the vendors a little then spent a good amount of time sitting in the lobby reading and waiting for the others on the bus to be done. 
This year I partnered with Joyce, our guild's quilt show chairman, who I have gotten to know since moving here.  Funny, while she does more traditional work, "a lot of hand applique'" which she does with master level skills I must say. I knew she loves using flowers in her work, but as we moved down each row and from quilt to quilt it became apparent that we had the same reaction to the quilts on exhibit at the show. When we took a break later in the afternoon, we discovered if we both had better recall we would have remembered seeing one another at several of the Vermont Quilt Festival we attended  the same years way back in the early 90's.
It's one thing to see the trends and newest things in quilting at really big national show (Houston - Paducah for example) and be blown over by the bold in your face use of some techniques then step away, visit smaller guild shows and regional show and see how the trends filter down to the "average doing it for the love of it quilter" which is not unlike  how run way fashions filter down to what you see Macy's.
A year maybe two years ago my friend Kathy Loomis wrote about all the sparkly stuff on quilts she saw at a show in Cincinnati, Ohio.  This year at the Jacksonville Quiltfest show, there were sparkles, but they were few and far between and only sprinkled about the surface instead of being an over whelming in your face presence.

What I took note of was the number of pieces made from commercial patterns or influenced by the work and teachings of national teacher and  what may be somewhat of a trend was the quilts constructed with really small pieces.  Big quilts composed of really small 3-4 inch block, or 1-2 inch squares, noticeably done with foundation piecing for precision.  I also noticed the color black was used a lot as well as segmented circles (variations of mariners compasses or Dresden Plate).   

There were a few hand quilted pieces and one I liked that employed the "big stitch"  The machine quilting varied from the all over programed mattress pad look to some really great work which I noticed was done on a piece by someone who had taken a couple of classes with me.... looking good Norma!!!