Quilts on their way for Festival of Quilts...

With not much time to spare, I got both the "Denman Kannon" and "Lulea Blockhus" packed and sent off to Festival of Quilts this afternoon. The organisers insist on each quilt being packed separately, which will make for an easier and more logical unpack at the other end, but it would have saved a lot if there had been an option to send two boxes packed inside one larger one and have them split out at their end. I really prefer being able to deliver a quilt myself, but with a £10 per quilt surchage to do that for FoQ, plus the only depot being in Surrey, I decided against it. If they had used a more central collection point, perhaps somewhere near Birmingham (since the show is at the NEC that would be more logical IMHO), I would have delivered the quilts myself. It feels a bit crazy that the quilts are going to one end of the country to come back half way!

Anyway, I made sure I got the most out of my packaging - two large Japanese postage boxes, so the quilts are simply loosely heaped, inside big plastic bags (with air holes!), and topped off with loose scrunches of paper. They are also upside down, so the end with the hanging sleeve is at the bottom of the box. My logic is that they are less likely to develop creases like this and, given the large size of each, any they do get will drop out quite quickly once the full weight of each quilt is hanging vertically. Both quilts are pretty heavy - with the box, the "Denman Kannon" is over 2kg, so I guess the quilt is about 1.5kg. All that sashiko thread adds weight. There is over 400 metres in the border alone. "Lulea Blockhus" is like any Log Cabin - almost as much fabric in the seam allowances as in the quilt front, so that adds weight too.

The next few days feel relaxed by comparison. A kimono talk tomorrow night, my second summer quilt workshop on Sunday, hanging the new kimono exhibition on Tuesday etc.