It's always a bonus when the quiltmaker is standing at her quilt - the backstory on most of them is fascinating.  And of course I always like to get her into my picture of the quilt. 

There were SO many spectacular quilts on display that I'm glad that I didn't have to judge - it couldn't have been easy to choose the best one!  At least this year (unlike the last AQS show 2 years ago) I actually agreed with the quilts in the Winner's Circle.  Here are a couple of the big winners.

Here's another quilt where I was lucky enough to talk with the artist.  She retired from teaching kindergarten last year and was at loose ends, so her daughter asked for a Wizard of Oz quilt - which she "whipped up" in only 3 months!  This creative work is her own pattern. and features wonderful Life Quotes in each block.  Unfortunately she threw away each pattern after she finished the block (WHY?!?!) but has been asked to recreate them, so it may eventually be available for purchase!

Here's another quilt that really blew me away after I heard the backstory.  

It's made entirely of itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie pieces, so no surprise it took her 3 years to complete. What was a shock was that THIS IS HER VERY FIRST QUILT!

There were several wonderful Challenge exhibitions.  

I really enjoyed the creativity of this exhibit!!!

For each of the 30 artists there were 3 mini-quilts chosen to represent him/her.  Here are just a few of them that I especially liked!

MONET:

MICHELANGELO

CHAGALL

CEZANNE

O'KEEFE

RENOIR

WARHOL

MIRO

KLIMT

GAUGUIN

DEGAS

There were a number of Japanese artists with whom I wasn't familiar, so I had no idea how closely those quilts represented the artists.  And there were also artists whose style I don't care for, and didn't include any of 'their' quilts.  But it was quite an impressive display!

This was another Challenge exhibit that had some wonderful quilts.

In this same vein, there were other "people and portrait" quilts in the show that were not actually in this exhibit. 

 Here's monochrome Lucy!

This quilt has 3 different faces in it.  When viewed straight on, we see Oprah.

When viewed from the left, there's Jackie.

And from the right is Mother Teresa.

  

The AQS booth was selling many books, and I actually thought about buying the one with this quilt on the cover, which teaches the technique step-by-step.  I was thinking it would be nice to make a quilt with a  photo of Lisa on the left, one of Alex on the right, and a photo of both of them in the center.  But after I leafed through the (thick) book and saw how complicated the process was I realized it was never going to happen <G> so I decided that I'll just enjoy the pix of this quilt!  (FYI - though there were LOTS of vendors I did not make a single purchase at the show!)  Who's proud of me?

This concludes Portion 1 of yesterday's quilt photos.  Time for breakfast!