Festival of Quilts 2024

 Thursday morning I headed up to Birmingham for my now annual trip to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC. It seemed a little smaller this year but I had a good time and saw lots of eye candy.  I went to the lecture by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilts - there was a bit of repetition from her previous talk on half-square triangle quilts, but this talk was mostly about blocks made from 'disappearing 9-patch/4-patch / pinwheel blocks' with a full quilt to illustrate each technique, some really nice patterns. 

I did a one-hour workshop to make a Dorset Button brooch which was fun.

And I attended the Quilters Guild lecture on Friday about their very interesting exhibition 'Patchwork: Pattern and Print: 1780-1840' featuring the Billings Coverlet and the Gooch coverlet amongst other early quilt treasures - I enjoyed the lecture and visiting the exhibition.

Here are some photos of things that caught my eye, plus some loot at the end.

This dollshouse wall quilt was meticulously crafted - most of the scenes appeared to be done on an embroidery machine so I don't know if it was self-designed or if it is a designer file that you can purchase.  Lots of really fun details, and I think the dolls could be removed and repositioned into pockets in different rooms.

 Miniature quilts (my hand for scale)

These next two were from an artist's exhibition, a young American? woman who was showing exclusively quilts based on these tiny log cabins and pineapple blocks that she handsews on foundation blocks. Unbelievably tiny, and she had about 15 or 20 quilts on display. I don't know how she isn't blind.

3D Creations

Belladrum Gazebo by Katie Spence

Quilts

I quite liked the faded vibe of this art quilt, and immediately thought of my own collection of vintage doileys and mats.  So I bought some  similar pink fabric to have a go at creating my own quilt re-purposing my vintage linens.

my fabric

My loot

I spent some time this week folding and putting away probably around 100 fabrics that I had pulled from my stash to make the Envelope quilt and the Lori Holt My Happy Place quilt.  It reminded me that I had really been  pushed to come up with the modern low contrast aquas, blues, greys and pinks that I needed for the Lori Holt quilt- because most of my stash is so old. Colourways do go out of fashion.  So at Festival, I was looking out for 'cheap' fabrics in those colours - the cheapest seemed to be £6-£8 a metre, which I suppose is cheap when regular fabrics are £16-£25 a metre and special fabrics like Japanese or African imports are as much as £40/metre. I miss the good old days when I could go to America and buy cotton at $3 a yard.

Julia Gahagan of Small & Miniature Quilts was selling these bookmarks made from vintage recycled fabrics, I got one for me and one for the m-i-l.

I'm really enjoying using rulers on my Handiquilter (since I'm pants at free motion) so after perusing the selection on the Handiquilter stand, I chose this one as it looked quite useful.

I'm a member of the Cross Stitch Guild so checked in at their stand to say hi to Andrea and to Jane Greenoff, and found myself buying this little needlebook kit, so many goodies to tempt.

This stall had some really cute kits in wool felt, I quite liked this thatched cottage large needlebook.  I think I want to change the window surround colour so bought an additional roll of felt in a pretty aqua colour.

I finished the knitted cat this week, and also a cartonnage box but I think I'll save them for next week because that's really enough photos for one post.

We spent today helping DS and his girlfriend with prepping and painting ceilings and walls in their new house. It already looks hugely fresher and brighter - I painted white undercoat over a dark navy wall next to the stairs which immediately made the living room look five feet wider. It felt good to help them out but it was tiring, it's been a while since we did much painting and prep.  I gave them the knitted cat and they absolutely loved it which was really nice. They took it to the new house and put it on display on the kitchen windowsill (one of the few safe areas amidst the DIY armageddon).