Say Ahhhhhhhh...

In January I spoke to the Lake County Quilters Guild in Florida. The members were SO welcoming and friendly; I had such a good time. While I was there, I gave a talk about my journey from traditional quilter to art quilter. I brought LOTS of quilts to show examples of each quilting "stage" I had gone through. I recently received an email from a friend telling me that one of the guild members had made a piece that was inspired by one of the quilts I had shown. I knew I wanted to do a blog post about the quilt as soon as she sent me a picture.

Lately, there has been a big discussion of derivative work, work "inspired by" the work of others, and copying work. I wanted to do a blog post showing you a great example of a piece INSPIRED by but not COPIED from another. This is Kelly Woodworth's piece called "Open wide and say Ahhhh. Okay, I see it. You have a frog in your throat."

Kelly explained to me that she made the quilt for a guild challenge based on a saying and said she almost went with a quilt based on "drinks on the house" until she saw my piece. The size of her quilt was dictated by the rules of the challenge and is 10" X 17". Kelly says, "When I saw Spike's black and white top, I knew it could be my hair or hat. It just talked to me. I took a picture (with permission of course) and then went home to start my challenge. It was the perfect inspiration! I got a blue ribbon with my little quilt and at the end of the show I also won Viewers' Choice! Thanks Beth!!" Well, I have to say I was REALLY thrilled to have been the inspiration for such a wonderful piece.

So that you can see what she saw and used for inspiration, here is a picture of me with "Spike" when I gave my talk to the quilt guild. (The real name of my piece is "Brain Freeze," but I have always referred to her as "Spike.")

(I didn't realize, till I saw this picture, that I wore an outfit that matched "Spike!")

As you can see, Kelly did a great job of using "Spike" as inspiration--not a copy--for her piece. Congratulations on your well-deserved awards Kelly!

If you would like to see other quilts from the Lake County Quilters 2015 show, click here.

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