Festival of Quilts 2016: Lines, Simplicity and Hand Stitch

 One of the outstanding galleries for me at FoQ  was that showing work by Claire Benn and  Ingrid Press, I loved the simplicity of colour, line and texture ( achieved with hand stitch in Claire's pieces). It was really interesting to hear Claire  talk about her inspirations and processes, much of which resonated  with me after my City Lit painting course. The importance of space, not being slave to your image ( either looking at it then putting it away or as in painting course, obliterating what isn't of interest) . She mentioned  work by Dorothy Caldwell several times  and I  thought I could  see some of Dorothy's influence in Gail Parkers  work in the 6th European Quilt Triennial  ( Gail was in Puglia  at the same time as me)

 I like  the discharge  marks  in the centre and the quirky border/binding. Most of all I  love the hand stitching - kantha in the centre and fly stitch(?) all over the background, it makes such an interesting textured surface.   Nice to see when there's so much (to me) soulless precision machine quilting.