k3n

Hi everyone, I spent the weekend at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England and wanted to share my experience with you. It was absolutely mind-blowing - the competition standard seems to improve year on year with new ideas and new artists entering the field and I LOVED it. I came away with my brain buzzing with new techniques I wanted to explore and ideas for about a zilllion new quilts! I'll try to give my own highlights...

Firstly, I entered two quilts myself for the first time this year and of course, I didn't win anything but is was great to see them hanging there! They have both been seen on the board before - Deconstructing Clarice, my kaleidoscope style quilt I entered in the Art Quilt category - Judge's Comments were, 'excellent visual impact, applique elements strong, draw the viewer into the quilt, lovely use of surface design and embellishment... strong composition and 'wow' colours, evocative of a theme'. And I also entered The Thirteenth Fandango into the Contemporary Quilt category. This is the quilt in my avatar and the pattern, my own design, is available to purchase here exclusively on the board http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-132474-1.htm

Judge's comments for that one were 'great choice of colours in a well-thought out, balanced design, excellent visual impact and good mix of different techniques'.

It was also lovely to see our own Borntohandquilt's fantastic work winning a well-deserved award in the Traditional category and to meet fellow board member, Harriet Carpanini in person on the Cotton Patch stand and take her (she asked!) to see my quilts.

The two dominant themes for me were the quilts using beautiful hand dyed fabrics, lots of delicious complementary FMQ and surface embellished with paintstiks and dye - particularly the outstanding work of the very talented German lady, Pia Welsch who 'encouraged' me to visit Heide Stoll-Weber's stand where I spent quite a lot on the most beautiful hand dyes (in the photo) I also bought some Markal paintstiks and a starter kit of Procion dyes and a couple of books on the subject, and I tell you I can't WAIT to start playing with those. :-D The second theme was the fabulous different interpretations of landscape quilts - from the realistic through to the abstract. And since I have two commissions I'm working on in this genre, it was wonderful to see and get some ideas. :-D

DH came with me and he was very proud of his fellow country-woman (he's Dutch) who won Best in Show with her wonderful abstract Art Quilt and First Prize in the Pictorial category with her African scene. If I'd been allowed to take one quilt home with me, it would have been one of these. They showed the pinnacle of what can be achieved in fabric and thread in the hands of a true artsist and her standard of workmanship is perfection.

And to top it all, I went on the Innova stand to play with the long arm and met a woman who knows our lovely Charismah! So it was like meeting Charismah by proxy. :-D

OK - sorry my post is so long, congratulations and thank you if you read this far. I've posted my favourite photos here in a web album if you'd like to take a look https://picasaweb.google.com/1065195...Jq8-oT-iP2yIA#