Festival of Quilts I

I've been to all 5 of the Festival of Quilts at the NEC so far (including coming back straight from my honeymoon but then Ian knew what he was taking on ) This year was the tightest turn round ever with arriving home from painting in the Dales on Friday late afternoon and being picked up by Sue 7 am on Saturday! I had a great time as usual, fitting in some retail therapy and looking at quilts in between catching up with friends ( many from 'blogland' ) I looked at the competition quilts first before the gallery spaces as I knew once I saw Dorothy Caldwells work I wouldn't want to look at anything else. More on that in another post.
I had 3 quilts on display so now they've been exhibited I can reveal them in their full glory. This one (Sky, Sea, Fire, Stone) was my entry for the Guild Challenge 'Elemental' and was started in an Angie Hughes workshop on using lettering at last years CQ summer school. It's built up of layers of organza, muslim and scrim (including some digital images) overprinted with words from printblocks ( so there is some acrylic paint in it!) It was hung in rather a dismal corner with a wooden bench in front next to a very bright quilt so it looked even more subdued. The judges comments were mainly complimentary apart from it could have done with more quilting which I agree with.

'Tideline -after the storm' was entered in 'Contemporary Small ' category. It is densely hand and machine quilted then overpainted with acrylic paints. It seemed to generate quite a lot of interest and the judges comments were mainly excellent or good. I was thrilled to find that it had been awarded 'Judges Choice' by Steve Lockie as favourite in the whole show! And finally there was the opportunity to display my 'Thin Blue Line' quilt 'Gythion Glow' just returned from exhibition at Dudley Art Gallery and Museum on the Contemporary Quilt group stand. While I think it is a well balanced and executed quilt and I enjoyed making it , I'm too close to it to appreciate it objectively. I've therefore been surprised at the amount of admiration it has gathered, to the extent that someone is buying it! It will however go on display in any further exhibitions, not least because it features as one of the postcards. I'm in a bit of a glow myself.