Pieced Quilts from Festival of Quilts 2011

More and more I am drawn to pieced quilts, preferably scrap quilts, based on traditional quilt blocks with lots of small pieces.
Somebody wrote on a blog recently that as modern quilters, we often move away from traditional piecing and would rather use applique, fabric painting or other modern techniques in our quilt designs. I suppose what she was driving at was that we go for speed of completion rather than the actual journey of piecing.
So perhaps we need to slow down sometimes and enjoy the repetitive nature of piecing lots of small pieces into blocks and quilts. There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than an uninterupted piecing session at the sewing machine, feeding through chain pieced sections and building up blocks in a lovely methodical way.
So when I go to quilt shows I love to look at pieced quilts, the scrappier the better. I love quilts with lots going on.

This morning I am going to treat you to a little quilt show of pieced quilts which were on display at Festival of Quilts. None of these won any prizes, if you think about it pieced quilts seem to be out of fashion with quilt judges in the UK.

I love the kaleioscope block and the way that the maker has substituted a blue triangle in the photo above.

A pineapple block quilt. Controlled scrappy - interesting placement of the orange scraps.

A miniature flying geese quilt - Flying Goslings by Dorian Walton. This was probably only about 8 inches square!

Following my visit to the Elegant Geometry exhibit in Nebraska I was drawn to this quilt made from elongated hexagons. and squares made in the mosaic patchwork style.

I really loved this pineapple block quilt.

I also loved this tumbling blocks variation.

Hope you enjoyed these quilts. I fancy going to do a few hours piecing now but instead it will be back to completing my book for my City & Guilds course. I will hopefully get time to baste a quilt this afternoon though.