Marina Mamonova - my favourite gallery at Festival of Quilts 2011

I have decided to do a couple more posts about the Festival of Quilts and then I will bring you up to speed with the sewing I am doing at the moment.
Every year I choose a favourite gallery and this year it had to be the quilts of Russian Quilter Marina Mamonova. I didn't think they would be my style as I usually am attracted by pieced quilts these days but as I started to view her small gallery I was totally amazed by them. One of the things about her exhibition was how different each quilt was and how texture played such an important part in her work.

I love her use of weaving in some of these quilts, and the wonderful texture she achieves. Lots of inspiration here.
I also loved the Japanese silk quilts but forgot to go back to take any photos of those quilts.

Festival of Quilts 2011 - some of the winners.

This morning I thought I would share some photos of some of the winning quilts from the festival.

This is the winner of the Group Quilt category - Mere Kats.

Click on the photos for more detail. Not sure about who made it as it does not appear to be in the catalogue(!). However it was much loved by all the visitors - it was very hard to get close to it!

Below is the winner of the Pictorial Quilts - Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga from the Netherlands. It is titled Hot Africa.

This is also Janneke's work - winner of the Art Quilt category and Best in Show. This quilt is titled Octopussy.

Below is the winner of the Contemporary Quilt category - made by Valerie Mullally from Ireland. It is titled 'Dear Jane. Its the 21st Century'. It is made from felted wool.

Below is the winner of the Miniature Quilt Category - made by Kumiko Fredyl from Texas USA. It is titled 'Blue like a Wedgwood.'
It is a wholecloth with trapunto and free motion quilting.

Below is just a section of the winner of the Traditional Quilts category. It was very difficult to get close to this and I was going to go back but forgot! It is made by Deborah Kemball from London. It is titled 'Heart's Desire'.

There were other winners in other categories but I'm afraid I don't have photos of those.
Of course I do have my favourite amongst these I have shown in the post - can you guess which one it is?

Wonky Houses at Festival of Quilts

Tonight I have arrived home happy, but tired from two days at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. The show must be the highlight for British Quilters and this year has been as enjoyable as ever.

The best things about it are - meeting up with old friends and making new ones, seeing some of the best quilts in Europe, great shopping opportunities and the feeling of being part of something special.

I really didn't want to come home when I was 'kicked out' at 5.30pm today but I have come away with lots of inspiration for future projects.
The quilts were of a really high standard as ever. My observations were - less entries from 'big names', not always agreeing with the judging, less entries from outside Europe and lots of quilts which were entered in the wrong category (makers have to decide whether their quilts are art quilts, contemporary or traditional)
As always I have taken lots of photos, over 300 actually and I will try to share some of these over the next few days.

We will start with a quilt that I came upon by accident - I didn't see it in the catalogue.
One of my current areas of interest is liberated piecing and this quilt is a masterpiece of liberated wonky houses. It has been made by 178 quilters from the Czech Republic and is 6 metres wide by 2 metres tall. It has been awarded a Guiness World Record although it was not clear what this was given for.

Lots of liberated, improvised piecing, each house individual and interesting to look at. It was a highlight of the show for me!

Log Cabin Cushion Workshop

One of the things I have been working on recently are these Log Cabin cushions which are workshop samples for Running With Scissors in Sheffield. The workshop will be on Saturday 12th November, details on their website.

This one was made using a Moda scrap bag that I bought last year, lovely bright Christmas fabric.

This black version was made using scraps - of which I have many! In fact I am in the process of sorting them all out for my Strings and Crumbs workshop that I am doing in October.

Today is an exciting day because in a couple of hours I am heading down to Birmingham to the Festival of Quilts! This is our biggest quilt show here in the UK and is one of the highlights of my quilting year! I will be there on Thursday and Friday. Hoping to meet up with friend Sue who I haven't seen since she moved back to Dorset and this year I am staying in the hotel with three of my quilting buddies, Lynne, Sheila and Kath. Bring it on!

Visit to the Hepworth Gallery Wakefield

My eldest son, Jonathan is home for the summer after completing his first year at University. We decided that it was time for a day out and the new Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield was our choice of destination. It opened in May and due to our travels we hadn't had chance to visit before today. It is dedicated to the work of the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth who was born in Wakefield.
Photos were allowed in a couple of the galleries so we made the most of the opportunity!

These are plaster casts of some of Hepworth's iconic sculptures.

This is Jonathan with Corinne, a friend from College who has been studying Fine Art in Brighton.

I can highly recommend the Hepworth Gallery for a visit, there's lots of sculpture (of course!) but also paintings on display. Ideally you should combine it with a visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is even nearer to where we live.

Students' Summer Progress

My Tuesday Patchwork Classes are on summer break but that does not mean that the students are having a break from patchwork and quilting! While I have been away they have continued meeting on an informal basis and they are making some beautiful quilts.

Reena is ready to quilt this beautiful baby quilt which has lots of exquisite hand embroidery. This will be for a new baby in her family.

Liz is also making a baby quilt featuring the cutest applique sheep! I really love the borders too - tiny foundation pieced hearts and a lovely scrappy border made up of tiny squares. This will be going to a friend's new grandchild.

Kath had finished this very colourful string quilt which is going to become a charity quilt. It goes back to some of the first classes I did in 2010 when we started with string piecing. It was started by Anne and finished by Kath - a great collaboration!

This quilt top has been completed by Chris and the quilt will be for her beautiful new grandaughter Charlie who was born just a few weeks ago. The block is called California and was chosen because this is where Charlie was born. We were talking about names for the quilt - I suggested 'Born in California' but as I have been writing this I thought of 'California Girl'! I love to name my quilts and always think about names as I am sewing them.

This is Kath's Handbags quilt top - this is another of my class projects from 2010. I love the borders which remind me of bunting! This is a lovely quilt but browns are not Kath's usual colours - she loves bright colours like me.

This final quilt belongs to Peggy, she will be joining the classes in September. Peggy does a lot of hand applique and hand quilting and this is a lovely example of her work. She made it by the quilt as you go method so that it was easier to work on smaller sections.

Hope you enjoyed this little quilt show! We are looking forward to starting our classes in September when we will be making Civil War Quilts as 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.

Teenage Angst featured in British Patchwork and Quilting magazine

Exciting news! After British Patchwork and Quilting Magazine featured this blog a few months ago, I wrote to them about Jonathan's university quilt and how he had designed the diamond block for it. They asked me to send photos, the block design and to write a feature and the result is a lovely article in this month's issue.

There are loads of photos of the quilt already on this blog so I won't bore you with more!

I was really pleased with the article - I think they did us proud! If you want to read it properly it is available in the shops until August 18th.