Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate

 

Although I couldn't attend the Great Northern Quilt Show to teach and demo this year, as the house move spilled over into my show prep time, we managed to get down to Harrogate for the day on Saturday.  I think this might be the first time I have been to the show as a visitor.  Certainly I've been demoing and teaching there at every show since 2001.  It was very enjoyable seeing the show from the other side of the table and having more time to look at the quilts.  Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so the photos I'm showing here have been taken by friends (don't know how I managed that!)


There were many wonderful quilts both in the competitions and the invited exhibitions, with Ferret's quilts in particular seeming like old friends after Quiltfest 2012, but the one that was the Overall Winner aka Best in Show was my friend Di Abram's latest sampler quilt.  The photo at the top shows her with the quilt - thanks very much to her husband Mike for sending the photos.  She scooped seven awards in all - Machine Quilting, Machine Applique, Sampler, Large Wallhanging, the Sue Belton Award (for Region 13 Guild members) and a Judge's Choice from Jane Rollason, as well as Overall Winner.  Wow!  Di's work is always exquisitely done, with perfectly selected fabrics for the project, very clean machine applique and loads of metallic threads (which always seem to have been on their best behaviour on her machine). Quilt as you go is one of her favourite techniques for her sampler quilts, but I like the way that Di always properly integrates the narrow sashing into the overall quilt design - there is another good example in my 'Compendium of Quilting Techniques' (aka '200 Quilting Tips Techniques and Trade Secrets), as her Celtic sampler is illustrated in the section about quilt as you go.  She really is a perfectionist in her work and it has paid off.

 

Here's a few details, from Fiona Garth's photo review on her blog -

 

Di contributed a three panel wall hanging to my 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' book. Sorry I couldn't find a better photo of it, but this one shows it on the far left of the 'Kamon' section at Quiltfest last February.  You can see a much better image of it in the book of course - it is in the 'Inspiration Gallery' section at the start.

Glyn entered 'Welcome to Scotland' and 'Mission Impossible', winning a Judge's Merit for the latter.

 

I'll do a second post when I get some more photos, as there were two quilts made from patterns in my books, one using some of the kamon crests from the Japanese block books and the other incorporating the 'Irori' design from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  Next time I'll remember my camera!

Region 16 day last Saturday

I was the morning speaker at Region 16's Regional Day in Perth last Saturday, with 'My Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  We had a great day - regional days are always a lot of fun - and the afternoon speaker was Gillian Travis, whose heavily embroidered pieces are so tactile.  Glyn did his second ever appearance in a show and tell with his 'Mission Impossible' quilt.

See what's happening in your Guild region by clicking on the map here.

Next Saturday is World Textile Day in Llanidloes - click the link on the right for the main WTD website.  Should be another great day out.

Glyn's first winning quilt

Just before leaving on Friday, Glyn got a call from the organisers at the Loch Lomond Quilt Show to say that his quilt had won the 'men only' challenge, 'Mission Impossible' theme.  Here it is.  It's his first quilt too :-)

It was inspired by the line 'this tape will self destruct in five seconds' that used to feature in the show, but you never got to see the actual explosion. Here it is detonating in an old fashioned British phone booth.  Look closely for bits of tape reel, telephone receiver, springs etc.

The quilt was constructed on a foundation, with the backing and wadding spray sandwiched already, so little extra quilting was needed, although he tried out some free motion machine quilting on the clouds (brave to do!) The phone box glazing is done with sparkle organza, with all the explosive bits underneath, held on with Steam a Seam 2.

On the Bernina -

The lettering up the side was done by hand. Here are some more details -

 

 

 Think I've worked out how to upload photos now!