Reflections on Festival quilts - Art Quilts

I was interested that this year there were far fewer quilts which I'd have liked to take home and hang to live with. I also felt that there were far more quilts which failed to excite any spark in me at all - so in some ways this was a big disappointment.
The winner in this section "Octopussy" by Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga was exquisitely constructed and stitched but it wasn't one of the quilts that "spoke" to me.

Two quilts which made me stop and look in detail, "Herculaneum" by Susan Hotchkis and "Jugs 2" by Hillary Beattie had features which I felt were different and interesting. Susan Hotchkis' use of printed and waxed brown paper was very effective and really did give an aged effect. I enjoyed seeing hand stitching in Hilary Beattie's quilt it provided a effective contrast.

There was a very high concentration of quilting on the pieces chosen by judges and I was surprised to see a number of pieces that were smaller than the competition size that had still been hung. A number of pieces were stitched in such a way that they failed to hand flat - impossible to know if this was intentional or not!

Festival of Quilts - half-day class

I returned on Sunday, wanting to concentrate on the individual artist's shows, and to collect my quilt at the end of the day. I noticed that Gillian Hand, an Australian artist specialising in bookmaking and altered books was doing a half day class on Sunday afternoon, I booked, and was so pleased because by then my feet were aching and I knew I'd have to queue for my quilt in the early evening!
Gillian was lovely, there were only 6 of us and she had prepared packs of papers, threads, buttons, fabrics etc for us to work with. There is a link to Gillian's website on the right hand side of the blog.
We worked on fabric and on paper, producing 2 little gems in the 3hrs. It was very relaxing and with just 6 of us we had a good chat too!

This was the first one that I tried, rollering acrylic paint and them stamping the background before tearing paper and cutting leather and stitching the shapes in place with buttons. I had a little bit of "Katia Ondas" yarn left and I cut a small piece and stretched it out, attaching it with beads. The voile was stitched with long stitches in squares.

This one was prepared as before, but had rougher pieces of paper torn and stuck down with glue before adding squares of fabric and paper.
It was a fabulously relaxing afternoon which set me up for the waiting and queueing needed to reclaim ones quilts!
Once I've had a change to properly digest what I've seen I'll write about the work that grabbed me this year.

Festival of Quilts - Blowing my own trumpet!

Yesterday was a wonderful treat - so many really interesting quilts and individual exhibitions, I have only done a small proportion of the show. Thank goodness I'm going back again!
It's a lovely feeling to see the work one has fussed over for so many many months finally hanging. Sadly my "Rocks of Petra" quilt was hung on the bottom of a panel so without light none of the detail showed up. The lesson I've learned is that one needs to make the work big enough to command a board to oneself!!!!

Given how long "Navaho" has taken to complete, I'm really pleased with it and it looked effective and seemed to generate some interest at the show. I really like its bold pattern and colours.

I have also come away with the neucleus of fabric for the next big quilt! I'll need to lots more dyeing of fabrics, but the basis is now in place - so exiting, I want to start now!

Festival of Quilts - can't wait!

Just returned from a short break in Glasgow - celebrated our 40th Wedding anniversary and my birthday with excellent food and a visit to GoMA, where I was particularly struck by a film from "Govan to GoMA" showing the impact of art on a group of elderly residents of Govan. Their new found joy in drawing was quite moving.
The modern architecture along the Clyde was also worth seeing along with the many city centre buildings once you could look above the ubiquitous shop front and look at the glorious designs above.
What a good idea Twisted Thread had in making the show programme available in advance of the show. Mine arrived yesterday and Its really helped being able to see in advance who will be there and where things are.

I am particularly looking forward to seeing the work of Mary Lloyd Jones (G28) and her very abstract pieces which come from her love of landscape and Pia Welsch (C29) whose works experimenting with ovals looks very interesting.
Of course I'm also looking forward to the Art and Contemporary pieces, and its lovely to see so many from quilters I have had the pleasure of meeting.

August JQ planning 2

Its been a while since my last post, too much cricket and trying to clear out my workroom so that it can have a make-over (not before time!)
So, with a couple of short breaks and Festival I realised that I needed to do some more work on the August JQ if I was not get too far behind!
I'm still looking at woven backgrounds, but altering the scale of the strips and looking for a better colour balance. I have also decided to use rather more bondaweb so that the intersections in the woven fabric behave themselves better.

I liked the effect I obtained from a freezer paper stencil and so have used the technique again. As the requirement is currently text, I have decided to just use text and that has given me the chance to make more of the "half as old as time" epithet.

I have used Pebeo Setacolor opaque in a shimmering pewter, it looks old and slightly tarnished as though it might have been there for some time! Once the text is outline quilted it will stand out more and then I may echo quilt the rest as there is plenty of detail in the piece already.