Spring is here and so was the Cincinnati International Quilt Festival! There was a lot of great quilts on display this year like usual. As I was preparing my photos for this post I recognized a few of the designer/artist names. I must like their work because I had photographed their previous work last year. It is wonderful to see a body of work by a fiber artist to get a better feel for their style. I even have a couple quilt in this years blog post that are by the same artist or machine quilter. Note: The images of the quilts from the International Quilt Festival are not to be used on any goods or ordered for images from items that may be purchased. Please respect the copyrights of these artists.

This post is only a small sample of the quilts at the show and every effort has been made to represent the quilt with the proper maker.

Here is a bird's eye view of the vendor side of the show

and a partial view of the exhibit side.

Here are some of the quilts from the show, listed in alphabetical order according to the title of the quilt.

I love the diagonal crazy pieced strips here, the colors too were striking. I have had an opportunity to work with Jackie Kunkel for Quilt-it...today and was so pleased to see her name as the quilter for this quilt and two other quilts I had admired and photographed. I did not read every entry in the exhibit so she may have been part of even more quilts in the show. If you want to see a truly inspiring blog and find out more about Jackie, see http://www.cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/

I loved the quilting on this, it added so much texture to all the solid fabrics

This quilt is part of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild's challenge to design a quilt with a modern spin on the Dresden Plate block. You will see photos of three others I liked with Dresden Plate references.

One of the several categories in the show was Tactile Architecture (TM) 2012 sponsored by Innova. Representing architecture in quilting is such a natural combination because of all the geometric straight lines and grids found in buildings and cities. This quilt by Terry Aske is a wonderful example with the dynamic diagonal lines.

It is fun to go to a show and find your one or two "favorite" quilts of the exhibit. Well, J Rock Star by Victoria Findley Wolfe is my fave of the show! Most definitely because of the graphic quality of this quilt, the colors and the great prints and quirkiness often found in good old utility type quilts. This feels very traditional to me which I love but is so fresh and modern--perfection! It feels obtainable, an art quilt yes, but one you wouldn't be afraid to actually use and enjoy!

Another category for the show was Celebrate Spring, I think some of these quilts did an exceptional job with it.

Summer Morning was another of my faves. Sublime use of line, form and materials. I had photographed Akiko Kawata's work last year as well and the organic quality of the fiber art is delicious. I love the large scale prints used and the quilting is wonderful.

Are you inspired? I am! Sort of a different selection of quilts this year then I had posted the last two years. You can look back at the old posts, 2011 and 2012 to compare. Again, with these postings, the pictures are my preferences in quilts--usually ones based more in traditional quilting since that is the type of quilts I make rather than the true art quilts. I am sure I have not represented the full scope of the show even remotely. There are so many wonderful pieces on exhibit I hope you are able to go to the International Quilt Festival if it is close to your area and see it all for yourself.