I wanted to show you the following quilt because it can’t help but bring a smile to your face. It had many of the quilters talking. The quilt was called, Menopause and the story from the quilter that went with the quilt went like this. “For those who have been there and for those who are there now, this quilt is my tribute to this time in life. The flames for hot flashes, the snarly look for mood and body changes; no matter how many jewels, we just don’t feel ourselves”.

The most interesting “piece” wasn’t a quilt, but drew a lot of attention none the less. The entire piece was fabric – watering can and flowers. The water streaming from the watering can was made from beads.

I love to attend quilt shows because they attract the nicest people. Quilters are such warm friendly people to be around. Quilt shows are also such great places to built up my inspiration. I hope you enjoy the following quilts as much as I did.

First, this one’s for you, Colette . Sorry you had to miss this show–especially when it was held in your old neighborhood. I thought of you when I saw the “Golden Arches” landmark on the Lougheed and again inside when I saw this quilt.

This quilt would be great for using up leftover strips. The story that went with this quilt indicated that the scraps were cut 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ and then traded with three other ladies. All the scraps were then stuck in a bag and pulled out randomly and sewn together.

This quilt was a chevron which is great for using up scrap strips as well. The thing that really interested me about this one was the choice of quilting design used to finish it off. The quilting gives an optical illusion quality or secondary design to this quilt.

The second discovery at today’s quilt show was Artist Trading Cards. There were a couple of women sitting in a corner with a display of the most interesting tiny “quilts”–a mere 2 1/2 ‘ x 3 1/2″. I stopped to talk to them to find out why you would make such tiny quilts. They told me that they were Artist Trading Cards or ATCs. They are the size of a baseball or hockey card and fit into the plastic sleeves that hold sports trading cards.

One of the women talked about the small size of the canvas being ideal to try a new technique. She also told me that once you make one of these cards, you are an artist. You don’t have to be a famous artist to make and trade these pieces of art. The thing that sold me was that because of the size, there usually aren’t any UFOs! This is a photo of one of the cards; a little blurry, but you get the idea.
I copied the following information from the poster that was on display next to the ATCs.

“Swiss performance artist M. Vanci Stirnemann was the originator of the Artist Trading Card (ATC) phenomenon. On a visit to Canada for the Calgary Olympic Arts Festival in 1988 he noticed people swapping hockey cards. Nearly a decade later he made 1000 miniature works of art the same size as hockey cards and in April 1997 he displayed them in a Swiss book shop. Visitors asked if they could buy them but instead Stirnemann asked them to make their own cards and bring them in to swap”.

Searching the internet, I found the following links about ATCs:

http://www.joycehartley.com/atcs.htm – Pictures of Joyce Hartley’s Artist Trading Cards

http://www.artchixstudio.com/create/classroom/class_fabricatc.htm – Instructions on how to make your own Artist Trading Cards

http://cqmagonline.com/vol03iss02/articles/art258/index.shtml – An interesting article on ATCs

http://prettyimpressivestuff.com/blog/2006/04/fiber-artist-trading-cards.html – Blog reference to ATCs

I can hardly wait to try making some myself.

Today I attended the Ridge Meadows Quilters’ Show in Pitt Meadows, BC. This guild hosts a small show every other year. It is nice to visit other gilds and see what they are doing differently than my own guild.

This year, I saw quilts with hand Applique borders that were appliqued after the long arm quilter had completed the edge to edge pantograph. This is a perfect technique for those who like to applique and don’t want to pay for custom quilting. Excellent idea!

The pictures below are of two quilts that this technique was used on.