Region 16's Regional Day

Thanks to Tarja Burlison for the photo of my talk for the Quilters' Guild's Region 16 Regional Day in Perth last Saturday.  We had a very enjoyable day, including presentations from some of the Guild's specialist groups (Contemporary, Modern, Miniature and Traditional - I'm a member of the last two) and a lecture by Professor Malcolm Lochhead about Keeping Glasgow in Stitches, the community mixed media textile project he designed in 1990 (there is also a book about the banners available and you can see photos on his website on the link above).  If you get a chance to hear his talk about the banners, he is an excellent speaker and also very amusing with the stories about the imagery and creation of each piece.

 

The quilt on the table to my right is the beautiful Edwardian Welsh silk patchwork quilt I bought eighteen months ago from the Antique Textiles Company.  I am planning to make a new version of it soon and will be offering the pattern to Today's Quilter. One of the members on Saturday thought this part of the border looked like beach huts - what do you think?

Quilts in four different exhibitions this weekend - all at once!

If I include my sashiko students' work which will be at the Spring Quilt Festval, Exeter, I will have work in four different exhibitions this weekend.  The sashiko sampler is in 'New Quilting' at the Rheged Centre, near Penrith. I'm not quite sure why the exhibition organisers wanted this one rather than the Denman Kannon, which is the more recent of the two, but it is there anyway.

'Sidmouth Revisited' will be at the Quilter's Guild AGM and Conference weekend in Torquay.  I'm not quite sure where it will be hanging, or whether that part of the conference area will be open to members of the public during the AGM meeting itself, which it was last year in Llandudno.

As previously mentioned, my sashiko students' samplers will be at the Spring Quilt Festival at Exeter.  This is the last time they will be shown together in that exact group, although I hope some of them will be able to be shown at SECC next March and perhaps make a trip to Japan together after that.

My other quilts on show will be at the Prague Patchwork Meeting over the weekend.  Somewhat by accident, these quilts all have a lot of machine work on them and are mostly machine quilted, with the exception of 'Solstice' (above - handquilted) and 'King of Hearts' (below - a mixture of hand and machine work).

'Secret Garden' (below) was long arm quilted by Ferret.

There's a little bit of sashiko inspired quilting on the tiled background on 'Fish and Chips' but the rest is machine applique.

'We are the Champions' (above), done for the 'Going for Gold' challenge at Malvern in 2012, and 'Missenden Now and Then' (below) are 100% machine sewn.  I've sent quilts to Prague that haven't been exhibited a lot before.  I wonder if quilters will think they are different to what they usually think I do, i.e. my Japanese quilts?

Llandudno AGM weekend

We had a brilliant time at The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles AGM and conference weekend, also known as 'A Celebration of Quilts'.  It seemed to go very quickly!  The photo above was made by Glyn moving one of DeAnne's quilts a bit fast, but I liked the effect.

This year had some excellent speakers and we tried to get to most of the lectures.  Magie Relph of the African Fabric Shop gave the first talk on Friday, 'African Threads'.

Our next speaker was DeAnne Hartwell-Jones, who does all her work by hand and has made several quilts using the 1718 Coverlet blocks, which she also teaches.

More of DeAnne's work.  The piece above was inspired by an iron foundry and used a few of my tsumugi stripes.

I spotted some of my tsumugi striped cotton in this patchwork too.

A version of my Super Strips quilt hanging next to the stairwell.  I can't remember who made this but I think it was begun in one of my Super Strips workshops in North Wales.

This is Dot Sherlock's version of Super Strips, started in the very first workshop at Gresford.  It is longarm quilted and the finished strips are just 3/4in wide.

We didn't bring this home - Bernina 720.  Lovely machine.

We went to the gala dinner this year.  The after dinner speaker was Lynne Edwards MBE, who had us in stitches (excuse pun) with her tales of her experiences as a quilting teacher.

 

 

I think this was the best food I have ever had at the gala dinner.   We had the vegetarian option, wild mushroom and spinach lattice.  The previous night, a big group of us went to Wetherspoons - you have to have fish & chips at the seaside.

 

More food related photos - the dining room at our hotel.  We stayed at the Hydro, a huge late Victorian (Edwardian?) hotel near the convention centre.  The dining room had a lot of Art Nouveau decoration.

The four stained glass ship windows across the front of the dining room.

Nothing very ornate in the skip though.

On Sunday, our first speaker was Effie Galletly.

The second speaker was Pauline Burbidge.  Her exhibition is opening at Ruthin Craft Centre on 23rd April.

Unfortunately we didn't have a good end to the weekend, as our car was shunted as we waited to go onto the roundabout at Junction 19 on the A55.  We all seem to have minor whiplash (I hope that's all!)

QGBI AGM and conference next weekend in Llandudno

The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles (QGBI) AGM and Conference will be held at Llandudno this weekend.  The last time it was there was 2005 and I think it may have been the first time I showed the sashiko sampler from 'The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook' in the Region 13 exhibition which was held in a separate hall.  I can't find a photo of it there so this one is from the last Loch Lomond quilt show in 2013.

I have just started the blocks for my next sampler and I'm aiming for 150 designs, including as many variations of asanoha (hemp leaf) I can find.  I will be demoing the basic asanoha pattern at the conference weekend on Saturday afternoon.

The weekend is only open to members of the Quilters' Guild and has to be pre booked.  It is a really enjoyable event and I have made so many friends through the Guild over the years, I'm starting to loose count!  Looking foward to what will be (I think!) my eighth conference weekend.  The first time I went was Eastbourne in 2001, then Southport, Torquay, Llandudno, Eastbourne (again), Dundee and Harrogate. Some years I've had other events that clash, but we enjoyed the Harrogate weekend last year so much and next year's will be a bit long distance for us (Torquay).  The event moves around the country, so every few years there will be a conference fairly close to home.

UPDATE -  An announcement from the QGBI on Facebook this morning -

If you live near Llandudno we have a one-off shopping opportunity for you!
On Saturday 16th April our Conference Traders will be open to the public from 9.30 - 11.30, admission £3.00. 

Traders will include African Fabrics, Barnyarns Ltd, Castle Court Quilters,Colourcraft C&A Ltd, Jaycotts Sewing Machines, Quilter’s Needs, Silken Strands, Stitch Allsorts, Textile Traders and The Fallen Angel Company.

Quilters' Guild area day (afternoon!) in Perth next Saturday

Asanoha (hemp leaf) is one of the most famous sashiko patterns and one of my favourites to stitch.  I'm doing one of the 'four corners' stitch demos at the area day afternoon next Saturday, so there will be lots of chances to see how to mark and stitch this amazing pattern.  Details here.

Of course, asanoha isn't only found in sashiko.  Here are lots of other examples, including textiles and architecture.

Ranma screen from the Aoyama House, Yuza-machi.

Two vintage meisen kimono fabrics - the black and white one is a haori jacket.

 Carved on the pillars at the main temple hall at Mt Haguro.