Hanging Methods and Judge's Comments

My baby returned from its sojourn at the Festival of Quilts today.

Pinned to the back of it were the judge's comments:

I'm pleased with the comments on the whole but the bit I don't understand is the 'Quilting, Needs Attention'.  Considering the fact that the winning quilt was a pojagi with no quilting in it, not even   anything joining the two layers together, why did mine need quilting?  I wonder if the felt support caused the issue?  I am delighted though that both judges appreciated my design, colour, and surface design.  I worked so hard at the printing and in pulling all the disparate elements together in the construction.  If I'm honest the comments about it needing more quilting upset me and my initial response was to think I won't bother next year, after all this was entered as an Art Quilt and pojagi has been seen as being encouraged in former Quilt Shows,  but I've got over that.  BW was right in saying the thread colour was a detraction, I wasn't sure I had chosen the right colour when I was working it.  Maybe a blue rather than a variegated yellow would have worked better.  Just for information, the whole quilt (not including the felt support) was two layers held together by stitch.

I don't know whether I will make another pojagi, the work was immense, but I suspect I might as the effect is wonderful.  I realised walking round the show that I didn't need to use the felt backing.  Other quilts had been hung from tabs, off rods, from perpsex rods and from metal clamps. 

This is part of Chloe Redfern's quilt, above.
 

I think the maker of the winning quilt may have had a similar issue with her hanging system but instead of finding a way to add a hanging sleeve on the back she made provison for a batten to pass through a turned pocket at the top of the piece.

I'm hoping to go to the Great Northern Quilt Show later this month and I shall be on the lookout for display methods.

Festival Of Quilts

Despite the best efforts of mum with a suspected wrist fracture (apparently it isn't) and hubby with a painful leg (turns out to be cellulitis, we think) I did manage to get to Festival of Quilts for one day instead of the usual three that I aim for.  I like to go for several days so that I don't exhaust myself trying to see everything, meet friends and shop all in one day.  Since I had to be content with just one day this year I concentrated on seeing the exhibition stands, the art quilts and with meeting up with a few friends.  Sadly I didn't get photos of everyone I met up with, silly girl.

I didn't rush there first but I did, of course, find my art quilt on display.

 I was really pleased to see that the organisers had hung my piece on a high batten as it wouldn't have looked anything on the lower level.  I'm not sure I had made the best decision about how I had assembled it with a felt support though.  I saw several alternative hanging methods that didn't rely on a sleeve and batten and I think I will make a second blog post to remind me of some alternatives.

I stood watching the movement of my quilt for a while and I enjoyed the way the light filtered through it onto the felt behind. Maybe food for thought for a subsequent work.  I am awaiting the judges' comments with a little trepidation as this is a bit different.  However, the winning quilt for this sector was, in fact, a pojagi quilt!

This is 'Sunrise, Moonrise' by Mercè Gonzalez Desadamas from Spain and is made of hand-dyed organza.  It is made of two layers of pojagi.  

The winner of the Miniature Section is a fellow Contemporary Quilt group member Roberta Le Poidevin.

The quilt is titled 'Hundred Acres'.

I loved this beautiful vessel made by my friend, Gill Boyle, who lives locally to me.  I particularly like the chunkiness and solidity of the figures and the sumptuous colours used.  If, like me, you are curious enough to peak into the top of the jug you would find a slip of fabric preventing your view.  That gave me pause for a quiet giggle, strange girl that I am.

Catherine Percival's 'Wool Garden is inspired by sketches of patterns on German salt-glaze pottery and Swedish folk embroidery.

Christine Heath 'Four Seasons' was very appealling with its layered and slashed construction.

Another friend, Sandra Wyman's entry in the Contemporary Quilt Group Dislocation challenge.

'Sunset Over The Cuillins' by Jennifer Lewis

This quilt is by my friend Maggi Birchenough and won her a Judge's Choice award. (Sorry, the colour is more rosey in reality).  Maggi had done a course on Abstraction with Lisa Call and I have seen great developments in her work.

Jules McConnell 'Millstone'

Mike Wallace 'First Arrival', self-dyed wholecloth, printed, scraped and quilted.

Julia Gahagan 'Home Sweet Home' which is about A4 size and very sweet. 

Another friend's work, Marion Robertson 'Greek Island Seas' which I love for its colour and surface texture, not to mention the addition of ceramic buttons.  

 Jean England 'The Monster' made from recycled silk ties.

 Above and below, Sally Hutson 'Diaghilev Comes to the Party.'

 Sally also has a blog.

This beautiful 'vessel' which won a judge's choice award is 'Splash' by Linda Turner

I met up with many friends and had lunch with several of them and I hope they will forgive me for the following photos which caught one or two of them unawares.

  No names, no pack drill!

I will make another post of the exhibition pieces, these have mostly been competition pieces, but if you'd like to see more of the show this blog has a great post.  See you soon!

Belton Horse Trials

Saturday saw us at our local National Trust property Belton House who were staging their annual Horse Trials.  Apparently this is the earliest yearly event in the three day eventing world and provides a lead in to future horse trials at Burghley and Badminton.  For the first time National Trust members, like us, were allowed in free which was very gratifying.  We are not particularly horsey but I do like seeing the show jumping and enjoy the atmosphere these events generate.

We were blessed with a mostly dry but blowy day and it was interesting to see Belton with a different scene from the usual Sunday cricket.

The paparazzi were being papped:

and the amateur paps were busy too!  The guy standing next to my DH had the biggest telephoto lens on his camera and was rapidly firing away as the horses came over the jumps but DH was happy to get his low angles.

There were some very famous riders and horses participating including Olympic gold medallist Sir Mark Todd and world number one William Fox Pitt who we saw set off and finish in the cross country course.

This very smart and poised young lady is Dani Evans, an intermediate rider who is representing Great Britain for the second year at the FEI Nations Cup.  Her beautiful horse is called Smart Time (I think).

There were lots of trade stalls at the Trials but I mostly resisted apart from buying some Oddsox!  My feet will no longer match!  I did fall in love though,

I could have stayed all day with these two beautiful spaniels who would have taken all the fussing I could have given them.  They belonged to one of the stalls selling riding and other boots.  I think they might have noticed if I'd made off with them ;-)  

Since the weekend I've been busy making a quick birthday present for a friend.  Fortunately she doesn't read my blog or facebook page so I can show you what I've made.

I've made these two mug rugs with thermal wadding.  I've decided they're his and hers and added some bling to 'hers'.  Who said I'd made a mistake and was covering it up?!!!  Lies, vicious lies! LOL

Wish us luck tomorrow, DH is having a biopsy, poor thing.  I'm off to watch the Great British Sewing Bee Final to take my mind off it.

A Jaunt, an Anniversary and a Quilt

Well, we took our germy selves off to the east coast last week for a few days with the flimsy excuse that it was our wedding anniversary and we thought some sea air would help chase the grotty cold and cough germs away.  You know what thought did?  It thought wrong but at least we did have a lovely week and the weather was kind to us.  

We stayed at a little place called Kessingland in Suffolk in a compact and bijou bungalow on a small private site.  The owner lived just around the corner and let us in and made us feel so at home from the get-go.  The bungalow was metres away from a footpath to the beach and the everchanging skies were beautiful.

DH took a photo of our anniversary cards - 8 years wed and never a cross word!  Well, hardly ever ;-)

There was lots of inspiration in the patterns in the dunes and the edge of the sea.

We didn't go very far as energy was decidedly lacking but we did take the bus to Lowestoft (why drive if you don't have to?).  Here again there was plenty of inspiration in the sand and groynes.

On our last day and our wedding anniversary day we took another bus into Southwold.  The bus driver spotted hubby's camera and told us to go to the harbour instead of the pier end of town as he thought we would get better photo opportunites.  He wasn't wrong, although we had to play dodge the very heavy showers and had to shelter in the pub, twice!  It's a hard life!

I hadn't exected to see this style of shed here.  You get similar black boarded buildings in Hasting but they are twice the height to dry the fishing nets.

This little shed on its raised up blocks really appealed to me and made me think of  Scandinavia.  The little windows are draped in nets.

I'm sure I can use this text somewhere.

Since we've been back we've both got worse with our coughs and 2 trips have been made to the doctor's, returning with antibiotics of the strongest order.  I think today, finally, I can sense a bit of a turnaround and I can actually speak without collapsing into coughing.  DH is still making a fair amount of cough-y noise but he is improving.  We have to be better for tomorrow as it's Mothering Sunday and we want to fetch Mum from her care home.

I havn't been completely idle this week while I've been stuck at home.  I've been working on the back for the Take 20 quilt top that I have been making with mum's pinnies etc.  I decided to carry on using the vintage fabric for the back so that the quilt will effectively be reversible.  So, I have made 30 blocks, some of which have had to be pieced as I didn't have big enough pieces of fabric left.

Above are 2 squares 15" x 20" which the whole back will be made up of.  I am pondering whether to cut the blocks through and rejoin them combining different colourways to break the big chunks of colour up, but that may be a step too far.  The beautiful hand dye is by Maggi Birchenough.

This is the pile of blocks waiting to be ironed and then designed into a quilt back.  I think I may have to use a room at Stitchcraft Studio to sort out the arrangement as our bed isn't big enough and I don't have any floor space that size either.  I can hire a room there for just £5 for 3 hours so well worth it.  Once I have everything ready I am going to get Trudi Wood to do the quilting as it is way too big for me to cope with.  The quilting will break up the solid blocks of colour so maybe I won't fiddle about with it.

I think my fat quarter drawer is a bit revealing:

Liking blues?  Moi?  I think I need to have a dyeing session and get some reds, oranges and yellows in there!  Obviously this is not the only fabric I have, larger pieces are stored elsewhere.

As I said earlier, it's Mothering Sunday here in the UK tomorrow so if you are lucky enough to be spending time with your mum have a lovely day.  If you cannot be with your mum I hope you can enjoy happy memories of good times past.