I wanted to share some of the highlights, for me, of my trip to the Festival of Quilts. I should apologise though – it was so hard to take any pictures! It was like a melee at times, with us all trying to get a good view, that getting space to take a photo was almost impossible.
But here are a few details of the quilts that made an impression on me (and that I managed to get a reasonable picture of!). I’ve included the exhibition number and a website, where I’ve been able to find one.
Also wanted to say one last thank you to Fiona and Beth at The Sewing Directory for the ticket!
Art Quilts
A little snippet of Chilling in the Kitchen in the Evening (119) by Marita Lappalainen. I loved the use of woollen fabrics in this quilt – and thought this teapot and cup were just gorgeous.
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I loved all the goodies on this piece by Jenny Hubbard, entitled, not suprisingly, Stash Findings (161).
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Not a brilliant photo, but I really wanted to share with you the incredible textures that the quilting has bought to this lovely patchwork. It’s by Alicia Merrett and is called The Night Road (224). This quilter is much influenced by maps and aerial views – it particularly appealed to me, when I was working as an archivist, one of my favourite things was to study historic and modern maps.
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A very small section of Spoon Fed Love by Maria Thomas (238). I really enjoyed this modern, sweet take on the cathedral windows technique. This was a wonderfully detailed quilt using recycled fabric and paper – I really loved it and wish I could have photographed the whole thing!
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Contemporary Quilts
I loved this knitted, crocheted and quilted piece by Pauline Law called Double Delight (304), and judging by the crowd around it, so did a lot of other people – not surprisingly, there seemed to be an awful lot of discussion about it. I particularly love the Gees Bend influence. This is just a small detail of the much larger piece.
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This is called Manhattan (309) and it’s by Bernadette Mayr. It makes me think of one of my favourite films – Rear Window, and a wonderful song by P J Harvey called You Said Something… isn’t the use of colour just fantastic? This is a large double quilt, and for once I managed to almost get all of it in shot!
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This is Bubbles (436) by Christine Chester. I really enjoyed the choice of fabrics and the way that the quilting worked with her choices. A lot of the quilting I saw at the festival was a bit dull (other than some amazing wholecloths) but I thought this was really charming. Sorry it’s not a better pic!
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Traditional Quilts
This is My Baltimore Baskets (502) by Rosalind Sutton, and is a very tiny piece of a much bigger work. I was absolutely blown away by the skill of this wonderful needle turn applique. And although this traditional style is not particularly my thing, I really appreciated the artistry. It was only when I looked closely at my photograph that realised that the fabrics used are batiks – I love the colours.
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Again, just a tiny part of a bigger quilt. It’s called Elizabethan Jewels (516) by Jane Rollason. I loved the way that the log cabins had been used to create these circles of colour – gorgeous. And the quilting is lovely.
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This photograph doesn’t do justice to this lovely large quilt which was one of my favourites in the show. Small florals against a white background are a favourite of mine, and I do love a log cabin… It’s by Liz Cornish and it’s called Log Cabin Flowers (586).
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Group Quilts
Two blocks from a larger piece by the Alington Quilters called Sybil Liberties (603). More florals agains whites – this time all Liberty Lawns – gorgeous. I really enjoyed the fussy cutting and the simple hand quilting on this one.
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Miniature Quilts
This lovely, evocative miniature quilt is called Journey (843) and it’s by Nina Davis.
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This is called Flying Goslings (809) by Dorian Walton – charming quilt, charming name!
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I have taken the photos and am blogging them here because I want to share the work of the talented quilters who created all this loveliness and to share my experience of the FoQ – if you have any objections to my use of any of these images do please get in touch – would hate to offend anyone when my purpose is just to share.
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Ooooh, I absolutely love the Alicia Merrett one – it’s very similar to something I had in mind to do for a few years until I lost the photo I was going to use. Am off to have a look at her webpage now. Thankyou so much for sharing X
i also loved the knitted one and the window one. they were all so beautiful and i’m v. jelous of their quilting skill. i did buy a new foot for my machiene but i need to ‘test’ it!
Not being able to get to the FoQ myself it’s wonderful that I can see the best of it on various posts in blogland. I’ve seen Stash Findings and Journey on other blogs so they must be popular favs! My favs of this bunch are Spoon Fed Love (would love to see the whole thing) and Bubbles. Thanks for sharing. I wouldn’t be offended if one of them were mine!!
Teresa x
Great photos! I am so pleased that people are sharing photos for those of us that didn’t go. Although I was a bit surprised photography was allowed as mroe and more often these days it’s not allowed or people get really funny if you start taking pics.
Well I am sharing in a spirit of appreciation of such brilliant work and hoping that nobody minds! There wasn’t any indication that pics weren’t allowed – except on some of the stands, which I can’t really understand to be honest. Personally, I would be delighted if someone took a picture of some of my work and shared the photo, as long as there was full credit given of course.
think the ones that didn’t allow photos were the rea arty ones, where the stuff cost a small forturne and taking images interupts copy right or that sort of thing for arty types.