Festival of Quilts 2014 7 - 10 August

The 'before' photo . . 

The lovely Laura Strutt who works with me on Vilene stands at all the shows.
I couldn't do the shows with out her, her energy and humour keep me going.

Well, that's that for another year. The Festival of Quilts was even bigger than last year, with fabulous quilt displays from all over the world. There were thousands of visitors every day, many from all points of the globe, including Australia and New Zealand. Working on the shows is a great way to keep in touch with friends, and of course, make new ones.
The finished stand - in action.
The lovely Laura showing off her fabulous samples.

 
The not so lovely and very hot Kim demonstrating her samples.
 
I made a new friend at the show - the very beautiful Laura from the Italian Vilene office. As you can see we got on well right from the start.
We had great fun together and will no doubt be seeing each other again.

 One of the many great things about doing the shows is that visitors bring work to show me - sometimes ex students, others that I have never met.
 
This little note book cover was made with decorated Decovil 1 light. A fabulous iron-on interfacing that feels like leather. www.nid-noi.com/product/PVIL.
 
I was pleased to see this visitor wearing a Tshirt she had decorated with 
Hot Spots and transfer foil. www.nid-noi.com/product/HOTSP

  . . And we mustn't forget the reason we were there - The Quilts!
There will be many posts on blogs about the show and of course on Faceook.
These are just a few of the quilts that caught my eye. I thought that by including the printed descriptions in the photo that I would be able to tell you who made the work - but of course I can't read them - Grrrr!! so many apologies to the artists.
I loved this piece - great colour and texture.
All the quilts were hung beautifully. 
I was particularly taken with this layered piece, beautifully French seamed piecing.

I am not a great lover of digital printing in textiles, I feel interpretation would often be a better route instead of a direct copy.
However, I found this quilt fascinating. A great use of tonal value.
Just brilliant!
I loved the layout of this quilt.

Alicia Merrett had a stunning solo exhibition at the show. I have always admired her work. Her use of colour, her design and finish are exquisite.

These are just two shots of a very colourful and exciting exhibition. 
To see more of her work go to 

 Another exhibition I was looking forward to seeing was the work of a new UK textile group - Art Textiles: Made in Britain. 
The members are Louise Baldwin, Pauline Barnes, Hilary Beattie, Ineke Berlyn, Cas Holmes, Rosie James, Edwina Mackinnon, Sandra Meech, Stephanie Redfern, Christine Restall, and Jenny Rolfe. It was a diverse and very interesting collection of work about identity. Here is a link to their website. www.arttextilesmadeinbritain.co.uk


                       I loved this very sensitive work by Ineke Berlyn.
This large scale work by Rosie James was breathtaking, the breeze created by the air conditioning gave it a life of it's own - Stunning!
It was good to see this piece by Hilary Beattie finished. I had seen it in various stages on Facebook, it looked fabulous.
Steph Redfern is a mixed media artist that I have been following for years. I love her work. I featured it in my most recent book - Reclaimed Textiles.
This was Hilary Beatties' stand at the show, a riot of colour.

As usual Hilary's work table is full of joy.
Steph had her own stand, just beautiful images and texture. Gorgeous work.

 Colouricious were there, Jamie and Ted were manning the stand selling their amazing range of wooden printing blocks. It was great to see them both again. There are many new designs on the website and some old friends have returned. colouricious.com/block-printing

And last - but most certainly not least, my mates Art Van Go were there, helping everyone with ideas and their exciting product range. I can't wait to see them all again. I will be teaching a 3 day workshop on Transfer Printing at Art Van Go on the 2nd - 4th September. Can't wait to see them all again and spend some time with them. www.artvango.co.uk
 The calm before the storm just before we opened on Sunday.

I had a brilliant time at the show - it was very hot and very hard work, but boy was it good fun. It was great to see my chum Laura again and it was good to get a chance to tease Chris and Per from Vilene. The boys are great fun and always very good value. Our next show will be The Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally - it will be here in no time.

x x x 

I am home for a week then I am off to Wooler, Northumberlad, to teach a three day workshop, Design to Stitch. I am very excited to be asked to teach all the way up there and I am very pleased to be teaching a design based workshop.

Then the following week I will be back up to Redditch to teach my ExTex 3 groups.

So I have lots to do - loads of admin and orders for nid-noi.com to pack and post. I might even get an hour or two to attack the hedges.

x x x

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