Inspirational Sunday (31) - via the 2013 International Quilt Festival in Long Beach

Happy Mother's Day!  Hopefully, I am lounging somewhere with a mimosa in my hand, perhaps getting a foot massage -- oh, who am I kidding??

Continuing with fabulously quilted quilts from the Quilt Festival today, allow me to share....

"Rainbow Lorikeet" by Helen Godden of Latham, Australian Capital Territory.  It won Honorable Mention in the Art-Painted Surface category.  It is hand painted, free-motion machine quilted, and is an original design.

Helen says, "The Rainbow Lorikeet soars swiftly and with grace through the tree tops like a colorful dart.  The bright primary colors of this Australian parrot are captured in detail, painted on the stunning white silk sateen, and surrounded by a burst of rainbow graded stitching celebrating his beautiful colors."

Lorikeets must be more graceful in the wild;  the ones at our local aquarium (they have a Lorikeet exhibit) are rather clumsy.  But they are beautiful!

I just love all the different quilting designs used in the backgrounds.  It is so neat!

The next quilt is called "Five Bar Blues" by Diane Loomis of Sudbury, Massachusetts.  It won 2nd place in the Merit Quilting Machine category.  It is machine pieced, machine trapunto, and machine quilted.  It is an Amish Bars pattern.

Diane says, "Inspired by antique Amish Bars quilts, this quilt was trapuntoed and quilted using many colors of silk thread.  While piecing the top, I decided I preferred rust for the borders, but didn't have enough cotton fabric left.  By happy accident, I found just the right color of silk sateen in my stash for the borders."

Just look at that gridwork!!

The next quilt is called "Lux Aurumque" by Jacquie Harvey of West Beckham, Holt, United Kingdom.  It is wholecloth, hand quilted, embroidered, couched and trapunto'd.  The design source is a Queen Anne silk embroidered bed cover.

She says, "I am a wholecloth hand quilter with a great interest in historical quilt designs.  English wholecloth quilts are traditionally made in one or two colours.  I wanted to try this out myself, but by hand.  I had not used embroidery stitches in a quilt before but this gave me an idea of how to use threads to introduce the colour I wanted.  I used many different  thickness of embroidery and quilting thread.  The centre has been quilted and the outer border has been trupunto'd with wool.  The title means "light and gold" which I thought was very appropriate."

I love those pineapples!

That's it for this week.  I think I only have a couple more weeks left from this show.  I may have to take a hiatus until I can visit another quilt show!

Thanks for reading today,

Jen