Quiltfest at the Museum, Llangollen

The quilts displayed in the Museum gallery at Quiltfest are two guest exhibitions by Turning Point. You may know their work as individual quilters from Quiltfest in previous years (of course, the work on show this year is new to Llangollen), from their solo work elsewhere or their group exhibitions at Festival of Quilts.

The gallery is an interesting space, as it is open to ground floor of the museum below, which is packed with interesting resources and exhibits about Llangollen's history. The following photos will give you an overall impression of the gallery. Our demonstrator yesterday afternoon was Maureen Poole, of Wrexham Quilting Circle, English paper piecing Debbie's Fibonacci block.


On entering the gallery, the first exhibition is "Trees in the Park". This is what the group wrote about these quilts on their website - click here to see their website gallery of these works (not all of them could be sent for Quiltfest).

"The Celtic Wisdom of Trees" by Jane Gifford is the inspiration for our collection of hangings. It is a beautiful book full of stunning photographs looking at the beliefs of an ancient people. But this is not some faraway lost civilisation, these are our ancestors and their voices can, almost, still be heard and, if we open our eyes, the trees are still right here. There was great excitement as we studied the Celtic Tree Calendar to see which tree we were born under. Some people were happy to work with their birth tree while others had various reasons for choosing an other tree. Once chosen we found that our trees had all sorts of meanings and properties completely unknown to our media numbed senses. The process of study and then creation has been one of the most satisfying our group has undertaken. I hope you enjoy the results.

A selection of the quilts on show at Llangollen (captions for individual quilts are above the quilt) -



Pat Archibald's quilt is on the left below.


I can't find a label for these two - 'Silver Birch' by Mary Ennis (left) and 'Rowan' by Liz Ferguson.


'Rowan' was my favourite out of the set, although it was hard to choose a favourite. Here are a few detail photos -


I liked the effect of the subtly overlapped circles (above) and the translucency of the foliage (below).





The second exhibition is "Carved in Cloth" - click link for website gallery.

We decided to make a piece based on one of the exhibits in the Museum's vast collection (Smith Museum and Art Gallery in Stirling, not Llangollen!), but what to choose? We were attracted to the Cowane Chest because of its history and the wealth of carving covering every surface much the way we cover the surface of our quilts with stitch. A neutral colour scheme was chosen which we hoped would compliment the dramatic red walls of the exhibition gallery. As ever we have each interpreted the Cowane Chest in our own style and hope we have done justice to this little piece of Stirling's history.

Several quilts and captions follow, as before.




Detail -






Like the exhibition at Y Caban, the Museum exhibition continues until the end of the month. On Wednesdays, the museum is only open in the afternoon.