Cobblestone Quilt Show 2010

After two years of planning and preparation, the Cobblestone Quilt Show took place this past weekend in Charlestown, SC. The weather was great, the quilts were great and the vendors were great. What more could one want on a quilt show weekend?

My big news of the weekend was that I won Best of Show for Arabian Mystery! It is exciting--but also humbling--to receive such an honor. There were so many beautiful quilts and I know it must have been difficult for the judge to make his decision.

This year, there were two Best of Show awards and the award for Best Wall Hanging went to Pat West for her wallhanging A Message of Peace, Liberty and Freedom. It is quite beautiful. Pat is fairly new to the Charleston area and I know that she is a welcomed addition. Not only did she win Best of Show, but she also won a first in the Pictorial category with August in Val d'Orcia.

This is a LARGE wallhanging and quite lovely.

One of the fun things for me as a teacher is to see the finished quilts of people who have taken my classes. And I especially like it when they change the pattern I wrote and really make it their own. Karen Kendo really did this with my pattern, "A Taste of the Lowcountry. She added elements--such as the turtles and the flowers-- and changed the straight border into a curved one which was complimented by her quilting along the edges. I love it.

Maureen Smithen also entered a quilt that she started in my "Los Flores del Sol" class. She did a wonderful job and the judge must have thought so, also.

Marilyn Wall--an accomplished art quilter and teacher-- didn't have a quilt in this show; however, her influence as a teacher was present in two of the quilts which were made by students that she had in her class at White Oak this past fall. I've never taken one of her classes, but her classroom is always bubbling with creative energy and results in wonderful works of arts such as these. This first one is Buddies by Lucretia Pope. The picture doesn't quite do it justice but you really got the feeling of the swamp when you saw it in person. The second quilt is My Quilted Songbird by Sandy Radar. Sandy is also an artist and had previously painted this bird (I'm not sure whether it was on canvas or watercolor). In Marilyn's class she learned the techniques to create her vision in fabric and I think she was successful, don't you?

I took lots more pictures but, unfortunately, something happened between the snap of the shutter and hand holding the camera so there was a lot of fuzziness going on. One of the nice things that happened for me at the show was that, since I spent more time there than I had originally planned, I got to visit with so many people I hadn't seen in a while. Quilters truly ARE such nice people!