Festival of Quilts 2017 Report

The Festival of Quilts is a four day event and the largest quilt show in Europe with thousands of quilts to see, and way too much to buy! Plus you get to catch up with all your quilty friends! Basically it is four days of bliss and excitement, where you feel completely 'amongst your people'!

If you remember in my last post I was just finishing my Shangri La Farm Sherbert Quilt for the Aurifil stand. You can see it behind me in the shot above as I happily clutch my new Aurifil Thread Collection box 'Sherbert Dip' for the first time!

I spent some time on the Aurifil stand on Friday afternoon and gave a demo to the gathered crowd which was filmed by the lovely Jenni for Aurifil's Facebook page. You can view it here. Things didn't go completely to plan and there were a few electrical issues (!!) which just made it all the more fun and entertaining. 

The demo is for my Tendrils Technique which you can see on that lovely panel above, it's a clever and quick way to machine applique leaves and stems without any raw edges.

I had a couple of quilts in the exhibition, and here are the obligatory photos of me standing in front of them (taken by my helpful cousin Julie who I met for lunch with my sister on Saturday - quilting being quite a family affair for us!). This is my Almost Black quilt which was in the Modern Quilt category.

And here is Hot Water Microbes which I made with Tatyana Duffie for the two person category.

I think the quilts in the competition this year were the best ever, it was quite overwhelming. I took quite a few photos and shared some on Instagram, and could fill this whole post with incredible quilts, but I am just going to share two. 

My favourite in the Traditional category (which got 3rd prize, though IMHO it should have won!) is by Janette Chilver and is simply epic!

My favourite in the Modern category is 'The World is Your Oyster' by  my friend Tatyana, the quilting is just sublime and I love the colours and design. You can see some more detailed shots and read about this quilt in this post.

Apart from the competition quilts there were also the most amazing quilts and textile art at all the galleries, including some stunning quilts from Victoria Findlay Wolfe, who was there in the flesh - what a charming lady!

If you want to check out a lot more quilts from the whole festival try this excellent blogpost by Zephyre Skies.

On Thursday afternoon I taught an Academy classes for my Patchwork Portraits technique.

Gill was this class's over achiever by managing to create her daughter at her recent graduation, complete with gown and mortar board and tiny red heels!! Brilliant stuff Gill! And her daughter liked it too.

Jane brought along a piece of fabric to match her blouse (the exact same fabric!) and managed to create a pretty accurate portrait of herself!

Love the glasses! If only Jane had a lime green spotty hat...

Julia finished her 'Ascot lady' at home and kindly sent me a photo. 

Love her matching accessories Julia!

On Friday I taught another Academy class for my 3D improv Dresden Plates.

Sue was the star pupil this session, managing to almost finish during the 3 hour class (this one just needs it's centre).

Some of the other students finished at home and sent me photos. This is by Elizabeth Ann who won one of the FOQ tickets on my Instagram giveaway!

This one is by Rhonda, she got the 3D effect spot on, love it!

And Ruth made a beautiful version and then made a 'wonder cushion' with the scraps. I hadn't encountered these before but now really want to make one for my wonder clips too!!

Thanks so much to all my lovely students, you were all a pleasure to teach!

I had one more quilt on show at FOQ and it was keeping really good company! Here is the first photo I've shared of my Tendrils quilt which is on the cover of the latest Today's Quilter (expect a post about this in a few days!), with Karen Lewis's gorgeous 'Outback Wife' quilt from Love Patchwork and Quilting to the left and Lynne Goldsworthy's stunning log cabin from a recent TQ supplement above!

It's a Thread House triple whammy!!

I was very prudent with my cash and bought just one pattern and one packet of needles (too busy chatting to shop!). The pattern was for this Bubble Pod by the very talented Beth Studley. I had been admiring it for the last couple of years, wondering if I could make one on my own. But this year I took the plunge and bought it. I made it as soon as I got home on Monday (I needed some fun sewing to ease myself back to work). It is an excellent pattern which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend!

I am delighted with it and am using it for my stash of Aurifil 80wt!

Shangri La Farm Sherbert Quilt finished!

Last week I showed the top for this quilt when announcing my new Aurifil thread collection, Sherbert Dip. I am pleased to show you the finished piece!

I made this to accompany the thread box and to hang on the stand at Festival of Quilts. Here's a little reminder of the colours from the box...

I think I got them all in! I mainly used Kona Solids with some matching prints for the quilt.

The original idea came for this piece after I returned from QuiltCon Savannah earlier this year. I had been to a lecture there on minimal quilt design by Season Evans and I fancied having a go at some minimal quilting myself.

We have a long line of poplar trees that border one side of our land towards the west. We often get spectacular sunsets behind the trees and this happened on my return from QuiltCon. Initially I was envisaging a much more minimalistic interpretation with just vertical lines for trees and horizontal lines for the landscape.

But it turns out I can't really do minimalism - at least not yet! Maybe I will have another go one day...

When I found out that my Aurifil thread box would be launching at FOQ I decided that I would make a quilt to hang on the stand and that this landscape idea could work perfectly with the colours I had chosen for the box. 

Here is my initial sketch. I tend to work everything out in my head but still like to put pen to paper just before I start something.

It turned out to be one of those projects that works perfectly first time. It took me an afternoon and evening to finish the whole top! The whole thing is improv pieced with wonky curves. The only time I used a ruler was for the tree 'trunks'.

I don't have one of my Aurifil boxes yet as they are only just ready in Italy now, but I have most of the colours here as I use quite a few regularly and others I ordered while picking shades for the box, to 'audition' in the flesh.

As it is not a large piece  (44 x 31 inches) and as I wanted to include as many of my collection shades as possible I really went to town on the quilting. I used a mixture of FMQ, matchstick quilting (some straight line with a walking foot and some with my FMQ foot) and hand quilting. There were a lot of ends to thread in!

How amazing does the back look?!! As it is was always going to be a wall hanging I just backed it with an old duvet cover without much thought, but it's plainness  works well to show off the 'landscape of stitches'. Those blobby shapes are butterflies which is also kind of appropriate.

As soon as I finished the top I turned some of the scraps into these two improv panels, destined for some more of my 'Project Pouches' (large zippy pouches, perfect for storing your latest portable project!). But then I took delivery of a new laptop and so I decided to make them larger and make a laptop case with them.

I matchstick quilted them and then spent Saturday evening (I know it was a Saturday as this photo has a #saturdaynightcraftalong hashtag on Instgram!) handquilting some extra lines.

My plan was to just make a longer version of my project pouch and so I measured the laptop, adding plenty of extra for seam allowances and so it wasn't too snug, but I totally forgot about the zip opening being smaller than the sides! Duh!! So of course when finished the laptop wouldn't go through the zip aperture. Sigh...

So I cut the bottom off it and made a zippy pouch after all!
Here is one side...

....and here is the other. It has left me with two more smaller panels that I can make into a narrower pouch as well, so two for the price of one! I will need to think again about the lap top case.

Meanwhile as I was in a zippy pouch mood I thought I better finish off the class sample for my Stitch Gathering applique class by turning it into yet another pouch! I used more scraps from the quilt for the other side of this one too!

AND I still had enough scraps to make two more panels for yet another pouch. This one will have added applique 'tendrils'. This is a technique I have perfected for machine appliqueing stems and leaves over patchwork (with no raw edges).

I will be teaching a demo for this on the Aurifil stand (C1) at FOQ on Friday at 2pm, so if you are around then come along and watch me! If you can't make it then it will also be recorded as a Facebook Live demo on Aurifil's FB page. I will post more about this on my return next week and provide a link (and show you the finished pouches!).

Also look out for a quilt using this method coming up in next month's Today's Quilter magazine!

Meanwhile Shangri La Farm Sherbert Quilt is going along to the Edinburgh MQG meeting tonight as my Show and Tell. After FOQ I hope it will end up in Alex Veronelli's  Aurifil Designer Quilt Collection which tours around quilt shops with him.

In between you can check it out in person at Festival of Quilts if you are lucky enough to be going this week.

And just to confirm that my Sherbert Dip thread boxes will be availabel to buy from the Aurifil stand at FOQ. By the end of August I should have them in my Edinburgh shop and online store for everyone to buy!

Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday!

Almost Black Quilt

Presenting 'Almost Black', a new finished quilt and a bit of a departure for me.

This got sent off earlier today to Festival of Quilts as my entry to the Modern Quilt category.

I've been thinking for a while now about how to make applique look more modern and minimalist.

My recent mini (for the Pantone Challenge) 'Greenery Shoots' was an initial experiment which I have extended here.

I started off using just dark grey, charcoal and black fabric and making panels of what I always call 'scrappy improv', basically lovely playtime in my sewing room!

The first few had too much contrast so I started using just black and charcoal.

Folks were very encouraging on Instagram and a slowly pieced together bigger and bigger panels. It's a bit like working on a giant fabric puzzle.

I even asked for some suggestions for blocks that I could 'improv-up', and Tatyana Duffie suggested a churn dash and Cheryl Arkison suggested some wonky letters, so I created the word 'night' which was a bit of an indication of the design I had in mind.

When I posted this photo of the finished top, quite a few people wanted me to leave it like this and just quilt it, and I did consider it (briefly!). But anyone who knows me would understand that not including ANY colour on a quilt is just not going to happen.

My plan all along was to applique different coloured circles in lines that would appear as coloured 'fairy light' against a night sky.

I prepared three sizes of circles and spent time appliqueing them in three rows (some nice summer weather luckily coincided with this hand sewing!). Using Aurifil 80wt really helps stitches disappear!

I did think about just one or two strands but, after consultation with my quilty advisers (Lynne and Karen) I decided to go for three, as odd numbers are always best (according to Karen!).

Can you see that I have left a gap in the top strand of lights? I do like a little 'oddness' (like the one pink leaf in Greenery Shoots) and I decided to leave a space as if a bulb had just blown, and to hand quilt an empty circle there. But someone on Instagram (Kim Moran-Jones) suggested appliqueing a grey circle instead and I loved that idea (thanks Kim!)!

I really agonised over how to quilt it. I wanted the dense texture I had achieved with matchstick quilting on my Greenery Shoots mini, but didn't want to do straight line quilting (my Pfaff machine, though wonderful at FMQ, really struggles with straight line as the integral walking foot isn't up to it). So I ended up with this kind of woodgrain type thing, wavy lines but all done with FMQ. 

I didn't want to quilt over the circles at all, I love how they stand out when quilting happens around them. Somebody asked me if they were padded the other day. The answer is no, but they do look a bit like they are!

I used a variegated grey Aurifil 50wt for the FMQ, one of my favourites, number 4670.

When I had finished all the machine quilting I hand quilted around each circle with a pale yellow perle cotton 12, to give the appearance of a 'glow'. The blown bulb, now an appliqued grey circle, has a very faint glow (it's very recently blown!) achieved by using Aurifil 80wt in cream.



I had deliberately left space between some of my quilting lines to add some hand quilting. It's quite subtle as I used an ecru perle cotton number 12, but I really think it adds to the texture and interest.

I love the fact there is so much to look at in this quilt, even though the background is kind of dull. I think that makes you notice more because there is so little distraction.

I used a scrappy binding made of the same blacks and charcoals, I just wanted something to blend in really.

I'm really pleased with how this worked out, it's pretty much as I saw it in my head when I first conceived it. Actually it's a lot better!

And I have more ideas for this sort of 'applique on improv' look, so watch this space!

Oh and do any of you recognise the reference (from a British sketch comedy show) in the title?! It's a family private joke in our house and what my husband said when he saw me working on this!

FOQ ticket giveaway winners!

The winners are...

number 10

Beatrice25 May 2017 at 06:36

Hello, love the small bags! Would love to win a ticket to the Festival of Quilts. Last time I went was 3 or 4 years ago. Haven't used up al the fabric I bought there, though!

and number 12

SewLittleToSay26 May 2017 at 17:52

I'd love the chance to see all the quilts.

I can't get a screen shot of the random number generator from the computer I am using so you will just have to trust me! 

Congrats to you both, I will email you. Sorry everyone else! But don't forget you can get £2.50 off your Festival of Quilts ticket with code WS41!

Festival of Quilts ticket GIVEAWAY!

As a teacher at this year's Festival of Quilts I've been given some free tickets. I've given two away on Instagram and now it's time to give two away over here, to all my dear blog readers!

Read on to find out how to win one of these tickets. But first let's find out about this year's FOQ!

There are so many reasons to come along this year! First off I am teaching two workshops!

I am teaching Patchwork Portraits on Thursday afternoon. This is a fun three hour workshop which uses an improv technique to create you or someone else out of fabric! I have taught this at both the Stitch Gathering and the Thread House retreats to fantastic results.

On Friday morning I will be teaching my 3D Dresden Plate class. This is another improv technique which gives you the basics for regular Dresden Plates too. I taught this at last year's Stitch Gathering and many gorgeous blocks were made, one of them (by our Edinburgh MQG president, Cathlene) became a mini quilt and was exhibited at our recent Knitting and Stitching show gallery space.

Lastly on the Thursday morning I will be demoing these two origami bags at a Quick and Easy class. To book tickets for the workshop head over to the FOQ website here.

And then there are all the other reasons to attend FOQ, like... the shopping! And... the quilt galleries! This year the Best of QuiltCon is coming to Birmingham! So excited to see all these stunning quilts again. There are so many amazing exhibitions this year including Victoria Findlay Wolfe, and 'Mastery - Sustaining Momentum' which is curated by my absolute quilting hero - Nancy Crow!

And then there is the main quilt exhibition, with over 700 incredible quilts from all over the world. I have entered quilts for the last two years and last year I got a highly commended award from the Modern Quilt category. This year I am entering two quilts, one of which I am still making. Yes I know the deadline for entries is next Friday, but the quilt doesn't have to be finished by then (FOQ quilts are not juried,  and therefore you don't need to send a photo), though of course that is advisable 😊.

Are you planning to enter a quilt this year? Find out more here.

And could this become the quilt I enter?! This is a version of my Mid-Century Modern Quilt, made for the 2016 QuiltCon magazine. I am teaching this for the first time on Sunday June 4th, and as it is a while since I made it I thought I better make a few blocks. I really love how this is looking so I may go for this... then again, I may have other ideas!

One more reason to come along - I will be launching something very exciting at one of the stands!! More on this soon...

But what about those tickets?!

Right let's get on with the giveaway. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment below. That's it, I'm keeping things nice and simple, just leave any old comment. Maybe you'd like to tell me what you think about those blocks above?! Or how much you'd like to take one of my classes 😉

Giveaway will end at midnight this Friday, 26th May. International entries very welcome. Oh and make sure you are not a 'no-reply' commenter and if you are please leave your email in your comment so I can contact you if you win!

And if you just want to go ahead and buy a ticket then you can get a whopping £2.50 off your ticket price (so instead of £15 it will cost you £12.50) by using this discount code at checkout WS41.

GOOD LUCK!!