Sitges - Spain

I have just returned from a trip to Spain to visit my sister.  I had planned the trip to coincide with the International Patchwork Festival in Sitges, which is on the Mediterranean Sea, about 1/2 hour south of Barcelona. We took the high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona.  In Sitges we stayed in an apartment belonging to the family of my sister's daughter-in-law. My sister is not a quilter, but she gamely came with me and enjoyed seeing all the different quilts.  Her comment on the first day was that she was amazed at the scope of the art;  that one can make quilts in any fashion, depicting just about anything.
There was a judged show of quilts made by members the Spanish Association of Patchwork - a country-wide guild.  There were seven other exhibits of the work of expert quilters from around the world, including Keiko Goke, Maria Luisa Gutierrez, Pat Holly, Libby Lehman, Nancy Crow, Quilts of India, and Quilts of Japan.  Each exhibit had its own venue in different locations around Sitges.  This made for lots of walking and a bit of map reading and exploring (signage wasn't that great), but the greatest benefit was the dispersal of the crowds of people so that one could enjoy the quilts without too many people in the same place at once.  The exception would be Saturday, when there were lines to get into each venue.

Here are three favorites from the judged show.  There were many very complex quilts, but these were the ones I liked the best.  (I will post pictures of the rest of the exhibits soon.)

titled: Aurora Borealis

the view from the right side of the quilt

same quilt as above, viewed from the left.

title: Azteca

same as the above showing hand quilting.