Taking a Closer Look: 5 Stunning Quilts from QuiltCon 2023

If QuiltCon is any indication, 2023 will have heaps of fabulous quilts appearing in shows. I wish I could share every quilt in each show I attend, but since that isn’t practical, I pull five of my favorites (shown in no particular order) to include in a round up blog post. The selection was particularly difficult this year, and many of my favorites are wildly different from each other. I intentionally did not include award winners in this post because you can see the winning quilts here.

Watermelon Eyelashes by Jo Avery

What I like about it:

• The use of multiple pinks in the background rather than a solid field of color
• Graphic black and white dominate the focal motif
• Mixing machine and hand quilting

Quilter’s Energy by Lauren Klementz-Harte

What I like about it:

• The abstract graphic motif is arranged off center
• Nearly complementary colors combined with variation in quilting density to make the focal motif pop forward.
• A fantastic range in quilting stitch variety

I Know a Shortcut by Maggie Schreiter

What I like about it:

• The quilt tells a story before you even look at the artist’s statement.
• A commercial print is cut improvisationally to become a small, but focal element of the quilt and the story.
• Hand-quilting stitches guide the viewer around the quilt.

Memento Mori by Emily Watts

What I like about it:

• Bold prints combine seamlessly with smaller prints, solids, and some selvages.
• Graphic outlines shift between black and white depending on the color of the primary fabric.
• A black and white stripe binding encourages the viewer’s eye to move back into the quilt design.

Full Circle by Audrey Esarey, Bob Bosscher, Carson Converse, and Jen Broemel

What I like about it:

• The aesthetic style of each artist effortlessly shines through while combining seamlessly into a group quilt.
• Hand-dyed fabrics pair with dominant quilting motifs to provide subtle color shifts.
• A dominant circular motif merges with strong vertical and horizontal lines to move the viewer’s eye around the quilt design.