Here are some photos that Janice has sent from the Birmingham Quilt show. She'll add some info on them when she comes back.
Birmingham Festival of Quilts August 2008
After the fantastic show in Tokyo last year, I really didn’t know what to expect despite knowing that this is one of the largest shows in Europe. Well I wasn’t disappointed! Having persuaded a friend to join me who is a lapsed quilter who learnt in the States, I was relieved to see that European quilting is alive and thriving and is not restricted to the old fashioned patchwork I remembered.
These are a few trends I noticed at the festival – Sue went the day after me and it will be interesting to see what she thought. There were a lot of quilts incorporating printed pictures or screen printed images and painting on fabrics used for all or for part of the quilt. Some of the most beautiful quilts were single coloured fabric eg cream with coloured quilting forming the picture and patterns. There were some stunning long armed machine quilting done with coloured threads which I could easily live with (so long as someone else could make them!) Hangings were in abundance and often in 3 pieces. Some pieces incorporated felting and the work of Jacqueline Heinz was just amazing and she even wore some felted and quilted pieces she had made as well as showing the best hangings in the show as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a website!! Ricky Tims was there with a variety of his quilts and of course his cowboy hat. Kaffe Fasset was also there but I missed him as there was so much to see.
There were so many workshops to do but as I only had one day I thought I would just look around and of course I didn’t get to see everything by closing time – there isn’t enough time and after a 5am start from home, although the mind was willing, the body was done for at 5pm! The shopping looked good and I found a couple of different things of course but it was a bit short on old Japanese fabric so Betty, Sandra and Miranda would have been disappointed !! Generally I had a great day and my friend has been inspired to tackle her UFOs and try some new ideas so what more could I ask for? Better try and work next year’s holidays around the festival.
Janice
After the fantastic show in Tokyo last year, I really didn’t know what to expect despite knowing that this is one of the largest shows in Europe. Well I wasn’t disappointed! Having persuaded a friend to join me who is a lapsed quilter who learnt in the States, I was relieved to see that European quilting is alive and thriving and is not restricted to the old fashioned patchwork I remembered.
These are a few trends I noticed at the festival – Sue went the day after me and it will be interesting to see what she thought. There were a lot of quilts incorporating printed pictures or screen printed images and painting on fabrics used for all or for part of the quilt. Some of the most beautiful quilts were single coloured fabric eg cream with coloured quilting forming the picture and patterns. There were some stunning long armed machine quilting done with coloured threads which I could easily live with (so long as someone else could make them!) Hangings were in abundance and often in 3 pieces. Some pieces incorporated felting and the work of Jacqueline Heinz was just amazing and she even wore some felted and quilted pieces she had made as well as showing the best hangings in the show as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a website!! Ricky Tims was there with a variety of his quilts and of course his cowboy hat. Kaffe Fasset was also there but I missed him as there was so much to see.
There were so many workshops to do but as I only had one day I thought I would just look around and of course I didn’t get to see everything by closing time – there isn’t enough time and after a 5am start from home, although the mind was willing, the body was done for at 5pm! The shopping looked good and I found a couple of different things of course but it was a bit short on old Japanese fabric so Betty, Sandra and Miranda would have been disappointed !! Generally I had a great day and my friend has been inspired to tackle her UFOs and try some new ideas so what more could I ask for? Better try and work next year’s holidays around the festival.
Janice
