Monday 14 August 2017

Winner of Fine Art Quilt Masters 2017


 I'm recovering from nearly a week up in Birmingham at the Festival of Quilts. I had a fabulous time   and  will write posts on the  ecoprint/natural dyeing course I did ( again!) with Brunhilde Scheidmeir and some wonderful quilts  I liked.  But after being rung on Wednesday evening to say I'd won Fine Art Quilt Masters ( and having to keep it quiet until the awards ceremony), I've been in a state of joyful disbelief ever since.

The various painting and drawing classes I've been doing at City Lit  have made  a big difference to my approach  to working and you can see some of my preliminary design work  in this blog post from February.  My statement for this piece ' Birchington Breakwaters' :
" The fragility of disintegrating sea defences rendered using the reverse and reassembled bindings of a threadbare antique log cabin coverlet , holes and tears revealing glimpses of underlying structures"

I was still stunned when this photo was taken ( don't look too closely at the  dark blue fingernails from  dyeing with logwood)  but was more relaxed by Saturday ( photo at the top) . The contents of the envelope: this certificate and a bank transfer form to fill in ( the prize is  £5000, thanks to generous sponsorship by Vlieseline). The icing on the cake for me was being chosen by Pauline Burbidge  and Diana Harrison, both artists whose work I've admired for a long, long time.
Thank you so much to everyone who congratulated me in person  with whoops of joy , generosity of spirit and lots of hugs  and to those of you who contacted me by email  and Facebook  with your good wishes, I'm overwhelmed.
What a way to celebrate 10 years of blogging, you can still leave a comment, I'll be drawing a name randomly next weekend.   and then I should probably be updating my website....
I was going to collect my quilt entry  tomorrow from Upper Street Events  but  the  winning quilts from the show, including mine, will be at the Knit and Stitch shows  in London , Harrogate and Dublin.  I might have recovered by then !


16 comments:

Olga Norris said...

Congratulations! And so great to have been chosen by such luminaries too. I have been mostly lurking, following your blog now for a while, and it has been fascinating to see how you have continued to flourish after leaving Kew and London.

reensstitcher said...

Congratulations. You and I met many years ago at one of the first Contemporary Quilt events. It is wonderful to follow someone's progress and see it culminate in a prestigious award. I follow your blog and have always felt we worked in a similar style although mine has not achieved the same heights. Keep it up.

Gerrie said...

Big congratulations. That is a wonderful piece of art that you created.

Marianne said...

Toue mes félicitations, votre quilt est magnifique BRAVO

The Idaho Beauty said...

It's so wonderful to see your years of study, experimentation & plain old hard work pay off by being recognized in this way. Congrats!

Debbie said...

Wow thats great, a friend of mine took part in this but obviously didn't win. She said she didn't mind though because the person that one really deserved it and she loved the piece. I didn't realise it was you until I saw your blog.

Pheasant Run Studio said...

Great job! I'd give you a celebratory hug if I weren't thousands of miles away. Alex True

mycamerandme365 said...

Congratulations! I particularly enjoyed returning to look at your preliminary work done back in February. The evolution of the idea and execution is fascinating.

Penny said...

Huge Congratulations. What a thrill and a lovely quilt to boot.

jill said...

Congratulations, quite an achievement which you deserve. Enjoy spending the prize!

Sandy said...

So Proud of you Margaret! Somehow I didn't find out who had won until the very end of the show. I would have also given you more of a celebratory hug!(as someone said above). I now remember people congratulating you, but I thought it was for getting into the Fine Arts!
Sooo, how many times have you mentally spent all the prize money! ;-)
Sandy

Kira said...

I was so pleased to hear that you'd won! I hope that you are recovering from the shock now and are planning what new kit or fabric you can spending your winnings on 😉

BWild said...

CONGRATULATIONS. love your quilt. You deserve this award. Enjoy it.

Marian Hall said...

Huge congratulations!

Gill said...

Congratulations! I saw your quilt at the NEC and I loved it!!

Polyák Ildikó said...

Congratulations! I loved it.