This week I am sharing with you the beautiful work of Claudia Pfeil, whose piece “Turtle Bay” won Best Pictorial Quilt at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK. If you went to the AQS show last week, you may have also seen her “Fern Rising” which won the Best Original Design Award. Claudia is on a roll!
Claudia’s enthusiasm and positive spirit are infectious, and she is so generous in sharing her love of creative quilting. This quilt is inspired by her scuba diving experiences, and her stitching, painting and embellishment really make the underwater scene POP!
I’ve been thinking about turtles today, because they’ve been in the news. Loggerhead turtles are dying in gillnets, and fortunately the US is finally taking action. Over the 20 years that I’ve traveled to Hawaii to visit Paul’s family, I’ve had some amazing encounters snorkeling with the sea turtles there. It is no wonder that so many cultures around the world have myths and legends about these gentle creatures.
When we first started our business in the basement of our home, I would always buy fabric when going to visit the in-laws on Oahu. I would go to fabric warehouses and pick out rolls of Hawaiian and tropical fabrics, and have them shipped back to Colorado. Generally quilt shops in Colorado don’t carry Hawaiian fabrics! However because we sell to quilters all over the world, many who have had memorable vacations to the islands, it became one of our popular categories.
Paul’s aunt and uncle went snorkeling every Friday at dawn, in the Nature Preserve of Hanauma Bay. They were part of a group of octogenarians who went snorkeling every week, and were even written up in the newspaper in Honolulu. Hanauma Bay gets very crowded during the day, but if you go early before the crowds scare away the fish, you just might have your own sea turtle encounter…like Claudia!
Thanks for your support of family-owned eQuilter.com – we continue to sponsor quilt exhibits and events around the US and across the globe.
* The collage above features “Turtle Bay” by Claudia Pfeil, photographed at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK, plus a selection of sealife fabrics now in stock at eQuilter.com
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