Road to California 2015

On a beautiful, very windy January day in Southern California

I had the extreme pleasure of attending the GIANT

Road to California Quilt show.

This is the 20th year of the show and it has grown from a small Southern California event

to over 1,000 quilts on display, 230 vendor$, and over $90,000 in cash prizes!

And the cash prizes are pretty impressive!

Almost as impressive as the quilts;

which you know take hundreds of hours to create.

A photo will never do justice to the actual beauty of these amazing 

fiber arts,

 because a quilt isn't just composing a pleasing color palate,

the actual fabric construction and painstaking hand work is mind-boggling.

Quilting is not a fast endeavor.

To be a successful quilter you must enjoy the journey 

and each moment that adds up to hundreds of hours.

 This could be an oil painting in a museum but, instead of a quick dash of a brush,

each element is fabric hand stitched onto a lovely textured and stitched background.

You really must see it to believe it.

And the big $10,000 winner of the show really highlights how a photo just cannot convey 

the workmanship, beautiful fabric and and mastery of a skill when it all comes together.

Just realize that everything you are seeing was created by someone hand stitching.

Quilts have come a long way from the prairie.

I have been to this show for probably over a decade and 

a new twist are the Special Exhibits;

which are basically smaller, themed quilts

The 150th anniversary of the state parks was the theme for 57 quilts 

made by the Sew-ciety of Redding, CA.

The quilts were all wonderful and I recognized a lot of the state parks :)

There was also a hilarious theme of dozens of random holidays.

Who knew such days existed. 

Power to the nerds !!

A new reason to wake up happy on December 6 !!

Another interesting concept was the inner self portrait

There were many very interesting images of people's inner muse

and I really enjoyed every one.

Can you guess what was the theme of these quilts??

But, by far my most favorite Special Exhibit was " Inspired by the Beatles "

There were 150 (!! ) quilts in this exhibit.

Can you guess ? She Came in Through the Bathroom Window!

Why Don't We do It in the Road ? 

LOL

And this one was so clever:

Happiness is a Warm Gun

and the artist interpreted with a glue gun !!

And then there were the general quilts and there were lots and lots of beautiful entries.

Of course I really like more quirky ones and I was not disappointed.

Another HUGE part of the show were the vendors;

all 230 of them!!

There were zillions of unique products and some I had never seen,

 also lots of really fun demos .

One of my favorite demos was a birdie luggage tag.

Love a good birdie.

And then I met the most interesting vendor.

Mary Jo Hiney 

www.maryjohineydesigns.com

who not only sells the most beautiful ribbons but,

also is an instructor online at Craftsy

AND has a line of flower patterns coming out soon for Vogue.

Mary Jo is a very talented, nice lady and I am really fortunate I got to meet her.

Plus she had some very good tips for successful ribbon flowers.

All in all, any day with my Mom is a great day.

But, sharing a day in her world of quilts

with all the inspiring fabric art 

and vendors with amazing products

gets my creative energizes 

supercharged !!!