Uttoxeter Quilt and Stitch Village. Pt 1

My first visit to this show left me with mixed feelings. In size, approachable, so one could see all exhibits easily in the day and today, sparsely attended so it was lovely to stand in front of work for as long as one wanted. I liked the mix of Quilt and Embroidery on display, chiming with my love of embellishing the surface of my work with hand and machine embroidery. There were a good selection of traders, my favourites being The African Fabric Shop and Oakshotts, more of which later!

The Paddock Boxes held an interesting collection of work by "Stitch in the Middle" a Contemporary Quilt Group regional group, where members had created work based on a visit to Whitewick Manor including a "Whisper" where members used a photograph as a starting point, with one person making a small piece in response to the photo, photographing their creation and sending this image to the next in the group who then made a piece based on the photo they received. This being repeated to every member of the group of six or seven. I was particularly fascinated by this as I have been participating in a similar process over the past few months and I'm looking forward to the "reveal"! 

CQ's collection of Journal Quilts were very well received, I enjoyed stewarding these as they provoke so much comment and discussion from visitors. 

There were some mind blowing quilts by Kathleen Matthews NDD, incredibly detailed evocations of landscape populated with animals and fantasy personas in the the most exquisite machine stitch detail imaginable! I could appreciate the skill without liking the work.

These were the positive elements of the quilting exhibits. Those in the main halls were much more traditional and reflected a wide range of skills in the makers.  There was a higher percentage of the embroidery display that was technically really good and I'm going to single out a few pieces.

Lesley Alexander's "Weathered Surfaces 4 & 5" were stitch interpretations of " faded, decayed, worn and weathered surfaces", intricate machine stitched textural pieces.

Complete works and a detail.

I was also drawn to "An English Meadow" by Rita E Weston a hand dyed fabric and thread tryptic which was full of detail, print and stitch that matched its title so well.

I also enjoyed "Golden Memories" by L Platts where the simple lines and bold colours drew one to the piece.

In the next post I'll share my exciting purchases!

"Art Cloth" experiments.

I am lucky to be a member of Weedon Bec Creative Textiles, a CQ regional group. At our last meeting, earlier this week we challenged ourselves to experiment with creating 5 "Art Cloths".

We started with five different pieces of hand dyed fabric and in small groups, worked , in turn, on each cloth to add surface pattern and texture with screen prints, Thermofax prints, stencils, block prints and rollers. We were allowed a maximum of twenty minutes working on each cloth.

Here are three examples of what we did.

Cloth 1

Cloth at the start

 After the first 20 mins.

 After second group had worked on it. 

 After third group had added their ideas

 After the fourth group finished. Finally those who had started off at stage one, returned to add any final details.

 Printing of lettering over the dominant petals.

Cloth 2

Here is the same process for a seconds cloth.

Cloth Three.

The challenge, next month, is to create something with the piece of cloth we have each taken home with us! 

My piece Is now pinned to the wall while I consider how I may use it.