Exciting news!

Contemporary Quilt have been asked to run the Festival of Quilts Tombola in 2013 and I am the project co-ordinator!
It will be a Bookwrap/ Book cover Tombola and we want everyone to take part and donate a Bookwrap. All the details are on Bookwrap Gems website .
I've started off with some experiments and added a few photos here:

I have even found a use for some of my 2010 Journal quilts which turn into lovely bookwraps!

Festival of Quilts 2012

Where does the time go, its been a week since festival and I'm only now catching up! Although I spent 2 days at Festival this year I really only managed to do justice to about half of what I had intended to see!
The most interesting galleries to me this year were: European Art Quilts; PB Retro; Masters 2; CQ @ 10; Anne Worringer and Kate Findley. They were especially interesting as my personal focus for this year was the surface treatments of the quilts, decorative stitching and quilting. In these galleries I saw work that was mind boggling; stunning in its simplicity and complexity in surface decoration.
This focus meant that I outside theses and the Art and Contemporary open sections I saw very little. I think that I am a great deal more selective about what I spend time in front of, preferring to educate myself rather than just gawp!
I was really interested in Angela Schenz's Dancing Leaves with her use of small rectangular tablets quilted and embroidered with a flurry of red organza leaves hovering on top.

Close up with details

 I have come away with some real food for thought the following is just a sample of the techniques that I'd like to experiment with in my work in the furure:

• Using short randon stitches to quilt, creating new shapes on the surface.
• Frayed edges to quilts
• Grids stitched on soluable fabric or paper and partilly removed
• Leaving abstract shapes unquilted, draws attention to these new shapes
• Shibori elements as surface decoration
• Use of regular repeated rows of simple hand stitches
• Using linen backgrounds
• Using markal paint stick on already quilted fabric.

I thought that the individual exhibitions at this year's Festival were of an exceptionally high standard and showcased some really exciting work. Having entered a piece for the CQ @10 challenge I was stunned by the exhibition and can so see why mine did not make it to the show! The curating worked so well to create a cohesive visual flow with such disparate creations. Well done judges and Hilary for doing such a wonderful job.

Geometric mistakes

Isn't it strange that you can only sometimes see the mistakes in a piece when you see it through someone else's eyes. It was only when I saw this piece here on the blog I realised how unhappy I was with the composition, and yet it was sitting on the design wall. How strange is that?
 Yes, it is a scrap quilt, but usual design principles still apply, although clearly not when I stitched these bits together!
I have tried some changes, short of starting again, which I think give better balance. The lesson I'm learning is that taking a photo and coming back to the photo a little later is better than the design wall. I know that in the past I've held pieces up in the mirror to get a different perspective on the design and that has helped. So perhaps a combination of filters is needed when you design on the hoof as I tend to do!

I have printing blocks to go in the blue square and some beading to add as well. I'll have a break from it while doing something else and make the next decisions in a week or so.