Liberated Stars Shine!

Every year at BIQR I get my new Gwen Marston book signed by all the participants, and Gwen too of course (!) kind of like a yearbook. It really makes a nice keepsake of the retreat. This year was especially fun as quite a few of us had quilts in her latest book. So we had a great time signing each other's pages and pretending we were stars. Not everyone has a blog to do their bragging on so I thought I might feature their work at the retreat and match it up with the book.

 

First I will start with Cathy who did the Liberated Witch Hats on page 31. Obviously her piece had a lot of impact on me since I had to play with that fabric too (see last post), but I heard that women in the other weeks also using that fabric. This time Cathy brought a different fabric to work from.

 

 

I love how those red wedges just pop!

 

Then there is Pat Haas, her work is on page 86. She likes to dye and play with fabric, her center piece is her own batik that she created.

Again she started with her own painted piece in the center, but what a different colour palette she worked with! She started with some tiny liberated stars...

Then added some red and some Paris novelty print. I think it is stunning!

My quilting buddy Christine is on page 92. She is always making great presents for her family.

This time she brought her unfinished applique piece from 2 retreats previous to work on. (I too brought my piece from the same retreat, but did not work on it all since I got distracted by that Ghastlies fabric). She spent a lot of her time working on "parts" for this piece.

Mary Elizabeth Kinch from Toronto is already a quite known published quilter, she has at least 2 books under her belt, her latest book is Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts. She made this interesting piece on page 100.

I think when you work with such small pieces all the time you need to have a break and do something really different. MaryE spent a lot of time appliqueing red berries to white fabric! During show and tell she revealed that she wondered that if Jackson Pollock could splatter paint from above she could let her berries fall where they may! In this photo she was experimenting with vine borders, and later she tried out some floating squares....I think sometimes you have got to take an idea and let it go where it may and at BIQR the creative juices flow! I can't wait to see this one done, it will surprise us!

and the there is Kate! wait, if I tell you about Kate I have to tell you about the sisters....I think I will save that post for another day!