the festival of quilts '13

Last Thursday was the opening day of the Festival of Quilts - not only was this my third time in attendance at the show but it was also rather special because...my v.own quilt was on display!

Childish excitement abound, it was the first thing I looked for upon arrival. Back in May I'd entered the 'My First Quilt' competition category (mostly on account of my 'Do More New' approach to life) and so there it was (and would be for the next 3 days) hanging up amongst all the other hundreds of other competitors. I quickly realised that my first attempts at a quilt were nowhere near as good as most of the people in the category but it was pretty cool to see it up on display all the same - especially when I saw one woman take a picture of it :)

Anyway enough about me, the rest of the show was v.fun too! Highlights for me:

★  Lynne Edwards mini exhibition, in particular her feedsack fabric quilts.
★  Mandy Pattullo's beautiful fabric and paper collages
★  Listening in on Kaffe Fassett's interview
★  Godharis from rural India
★  The beautiful geometric patterns (and products) by Heleddmai.

Close-up of the butterfly quilt by Lynne Edwards

Lynne Edwards' feedsack fabric quilts

Mandy Pattullo work taken from 'Thread and Thrift' exhibition

Mandy Pattullo. This and the one above were my favourites.

Mandy Pattullo - skirt

One of the godharis (that's quilts to you and me) from rural India. These pictures really don't do the colours justice - they were amazing.

Godharis close-up

Godharis

Left: Alicia Merrett -  Map quilt.
Right: 'Box' entered into the 'Quilt Masters' category, sadly no name was displayed next to it. 

Kaffe Fassett chatting away. He was very charming with an interesting turn of phrase - he actually described paisley as sexy!

'Crossroads' - Hayfa Al Mughni


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


And now for some of the competition pieces which really stood out for me...

Left: 'Princess and the Pea' - Sue Trevor
Right: 'Just to make you Smile' - Gillian Travis.
Both from the Quilt Creations category

Left: 'Scarlett's Crimson' - Philippa Naylor (Quilt Creations)
Right: 'Little Stars' - Jean Ball (Traditional Quilts)

Left: Peckham community quilt (I think this was in the group category)
Right: 'Flower Pecker' - Stephanie Redfern (ContemporaryQuilts)

'Every text he ever sent' - Lara Hailey (Art Quilts). I thought this idea was v.clever and pretty insane if you think about the amount of hours needed to stitch all that text!

'In the style of Frank Lloyd Wright' - Mary Morrison (Miniature Quilts)



Lastly, as always, I couldn't leave the NEC empty handed so bought a couple of fat quarters for the stash from The Running Chicken.

Nice eh?