Antique quilt inspirations and two forthcoming exhibitions

Antique quilts have such wonderful designs and two forthcoming exhibitions will no doubt provide more inspitations.  At York, the Quilt Museum opens their new exhibition, 'The Blossoming of Patchwork', on May 18th.  With its focus on early printed fabrics, this promises to be very interesting and it will include some well-known quilts and coverlets from the collections.

One of the quilt images being used to promote the exhitbion online is the Mrs Billings coverlet which appears as a tiny thumbnail on the exhibitions page - here's a link to the larger image in the Heritage Collection online.  I'm looking forward to seeing this intricate early patchwork.  Australian quilter Karen Styles has drafted templates for a version of this patchwork, shown here on her website.  It's got a few changes from the original, but they are hard to spot and the effect is really lovely.  I wonder if there will be some more quilts inspired by this complex patchwork coverlet after the exhibition.

The patchwork in the photo at the top is my version of a checkerboard quilt that was shown as part of the V & A's 'Quilts 1700 - 2010' exhibition in 2010.  Like Karen's version of Mrs Billings' coverlet, it isn't identical to the original. I was interested in the process of creating a quilt with a similar effect to the original but not necessarily a replica, so I resized the squares so I could use charm packs. It's two thirds the size of the antique quilt. I left off the mini checkerboard blocks visible at the edges of the original quilt in the photo below (one taken by Sally Bramald when we attended the bloggers' preview), because the pieces would have been really tiny - less than 1/2in finished.  More links re my V & A repro quilts here.

 

Many of the quilts from the V & A's exhibition are about to be shown in Brisbane, at the Queensland Art Gallery, 15th June - 22nd September 2013, so our Australian friends will have a chance to see them and, I hope, be just as inspired to make their own modern versions.  If you can get to Brisbane, don't miss these quilts!

Quilts UK, Malvern - coming up this week

 

I'll be at Quilts UK again this week, from Thursday to Sunday.  I have some 'new' Japanese fabrics for sale, and some kimono that haven't had an outing before.  We will be in our usual spot in the Marquee, just at the left at the bottom of the ramp.  This year I'm teaching a one hour workshop every day, so I won't be on the stand all the time, but when I'm not, Glyn will be able to help you out.  Workshop details are here - I'll be in Workshop 4 at 12.45p.m., but pre booking at the workshops desk is essential.

Japanese Circles and Squares with Tweeddale Quilters

Here's some of the fabulous colour schemes created by Tweeddale Quilters at our workshop near Peebles last Wednesday.  I think we had the highest ever proportion of the random version of Japanese Circles and Squares created in this workshop, as so many of the fabrics lent themselves to that arrangement.  The fabrics above are all Australian (I think I recognised one designed by Lisa at Chandler's Cottage) and included native Australian designs and lavish gold prints featuring Aussie flowers, all tied together with that wonderful turquoise wave print.

Two collections featuring a lot of Japanese prints made very different blocks, although several fabrics were similar.  The first included an African wax batik (with the bright green and yellow ochre bands) which had a repeated brown stripe that reminded me of the window bars on traditional Japanese townhouses.  African fabrics often work so well with Japanese prints.  In the second combination, the minimalist pink polkadot print has turned out to be the most dominant fabric.  It looks like a summer kimono fabric I have.  The striped floral print on cream gives the blocks a fresh look, rather 1920s.

Batiks and abstract fabrics are always good choices.  The first set below shows the right angle strip arrangement I tried out on the turquoise & purple workshop sample.  The bright green batik makes these blocks pop, while the intense blue in the random set below looks very intense.

Christine's choice of very coordinated fabrics has an Art Deco feeling, especially the striking black and white swirl print.

 

There were several sets of the original JC&S blocks, where all the outer fabrics match.  These will make lovely, coordinated patchworks - each fabric will be evenly distributed across the quilt.  The second set was coordinated around the horse print (a Laurel Burch design), which will be used for the circles - or perhaps ovals.

  

Hopefully I'll see some of the finished quilts when I'm at the Scottish Quilt Championships in September?

Glyn's latest quilt - work in progress for Loch Lomond Quilt Show

Glyn has been working on this year's entry for the Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  Here are some work in progress photos.  This year's Men Only theme is 'Manmade'. You'll have to wait until after the show to see the finished piece - unless you are visiting of course.  Clues - it is very reflective and in real life is much, much bigger! He's also entered it for 'A Touch of Yellow', this year's theme category at the National Quilting Championships at Sandown Park, and is planning to send it to the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate and the Scottish Quilt Championships at Edinburgh as well.

Here's a useful idea for improvising weights while the 505 spray glue dries -

First stage quilting -

Second stage quilting -

 

Another clue -

Mayday in East Sussex and Kent etc.

I wasn't working on Mayday, so we were up before dawn to watch Shalesbrook Morris  (above) and Ashdown Forest Morris Men dancing in Ashdown Forest.

Yes, you probably can see members of the audience wrapped up in blankets!  The sunrise wasn't that spectacular and it was rather chilly.  The sun is somewhere in this photo.

It had got a bit warmer by 7.30, when Ashdown danced the Boosebeck sword dance at the Hatch Inn.

In the evening, we went to the Kettle Bridge to watch Kettle Bridge Clogs dance.  Glyn got recruited into a public dance at the end.  He'll have to work harder at the right team colours.

Happy (belated) Mayday!  Glyn also tried the waters at the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells - but the beer tastes better!

Workshops last week in East Sussex

For some reason, I couldn't get Blogger to load up these photos earlier in the week, so there's been a bit of a delay in posting about the three workshops I had in East Sussex from the end of April to the beginning of May.  I seem to have got around it today by using a different internet browser, so there will be a few blog posts in very quick succession!

The second workshop was with Burwash Quilters and we did 'Japanese Art Quilt Boromono'. As you can see from the photo above, creative people can't be tidy :-)  The group set up their sewing machines at one end of the room, but had their cutting tables in the centre.  It worked very well for this workshop, where we are alternating between cutting and piecing all the time, giving everyone plenty of room to arrange and evaluate their patchworks as they grew.  Here's some of the boromono, which are inspired by old Japanese rag cloths.

This quilter had lots of indigo and other hand dyes she had done herself and combined them with small Japanese prints and a lovely bold Indian recycled floral fabric, which reminded me of Japanese sarasa prints (which were Indian inspired).

The lilac pieces in this boromono are silk dupion, with a slight two tone effect - very difficult to capture the subtlety in a photo.  Mixing different fibres can add a lot of interest.

A great collection of old shirt fabrics makes a good boromono.  This one is complete with pockets and even a buttonhole strip as a diagonal applique.

Dorothy made TWO boromono in the workshop.  The first one will become a picnic throw and uses up furnishing samples.  The fabrics with the floating squares and grids give an interesting look when pieced in.

This is her second panel.  We did a fabric swap as the scrolling batik was perfect for a project I'm planning - the bold diamond motifs on white are one of my yukata fabrics.

Rusts, browns and creams make a harmonious colour scheme.

A large scale printed linen and a cream an blue check worked very well with some Moda patchwork fabrics, with a rather French feel to this patchwork.

I can't really have a favourite, but I love the yellow tsumugi cotton picking up on the same yellow in the Indian handprinted cotton here, and the use of the pillowcase bags (complete with a label)!

Large scale furnishing fabrics always work well for this.  The butterfly fabrics were carefully cut and positioned among all the florals while the large pale flowers make the dark fabrics more interesting.  There aren't all that many pieces in this boromono, but it is bold and has a very attractive sense of direction in the patchwork.

Very pale linen-type fabrics are framed by a stripe, which runs in both directions.  The light greens and blossom colours were all around in the countryside during our visit, so this has a strong Spring feeling for me.

There were a few more pieces I didn't manage to snap, but I'm looking forward to seeing photos of the finished panels. 

My other workshops were both sashiko - 'Sashiko for Summer' with Brede Crafters on the first Saturday and 'Sashiko Furoshiki' with Rye Creative Stitchers on the second.  The first two photos are from the first workshop and the rest from the second.  Lots of lovely fabric colours chosen for these pieces.