Towne Squares Quilt Show Darke County, Ohio

Dragon Tatoo, Wyatt Marker, owner, G'mal Crowell and  Laurena  Marker. 

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to go to two quilt shows on the same day....two hours apart.  It was kind of a mad dash across my corner of Ohio.    The first show I went to was the Towne Squares Quilt Guild's show at the Darke County Fairgrounds in Greenville, Ohio.  The Towne Squares is a predominently traditional guild.  Each year they hold their show on Columbus Day weekend and they often ask the Batty Binder's of Troy to join in and show quilts, as well as other friends.

An interesting quilt was this one, called "Dragon Tattoo" which combines traditional blocks with appliques designed from tattoos.  I have to say, it was difficult to read the marker labels on the goldenrod colored paper...It appears that G'Mal Crowell and Laurena Marker designed and made this quilt for Laurena's son Wyatt Marker as a graduation present.   The applique was completed by Linda McGlothin.

Most of the quilts didn't mention that they were made from patterns from books or otherwise.  Some did mention it, but others didn't.  I did a quick search on all of these to see if I could find quilts by the same name mentioned in these patterns.  I didn't find any, and I am pretty sure that this one, at least, was designed by the makers.  It was quilted by "a friend."

Rhonda George, "In Full Bloom."

As I have been thinking a lot about texture lately, this interesting piece caught my eye.  Rhonda George took the "silk" flowers from commercially purchased flower bunches and attached them to a plain strip.  Each flower center was held by a gold bead.  Back in the early 1990s, using silk flowers on quilts was popular, but I haven't seen it in a long time, and I don't remember ever seeing one quite like this one.

This last one really interested me...and I wondered if it were computer generated.  The ability to get all four blocks to be the same seems highly unlikely if it were done only with the sewer guiding the machine, although I suppose it could have been marked out.

While I was at the show, many of the quilters, mostly traditional quilters, were commenting on how the various computer generated quilting programs were not really showing the ability of the quilter.  Several professional quilters commented that they simply couldn't quilt the quilts in the way the Statler Stitchers and other quilting programs did it...and that they didn't see the ability in setting  a program and walking away from the long arm or sewing machine letting it do all the work.

I sure wish I could have talked to Terry Thoreen about this piece she called "Points of View."  Which is seen above.  She did three  pieces in this style, at left is a detail from "String Art", and the third was called "Pretty Circles."