Unusual techniques at the Festival of Quilts 2019

I can’t beleive that it is the end of October, and I’m still working through my pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

The group today show what you can do with a slightly unusual technique and a little imagination.

The first picture shows that, while sewing together squares of old shirts might sound ordinary, thinking about using the raw edges as a feature can liven things up considerably.

Plain fabric is usually quilted in a matching thread, but using a coloured thread really brings out the pattern. This example is particularly striking, as not only has blue been quilted with its complementary colour, orange, but the stitching is more intensive in some areas, adding additional dimentional contrast. In a venue full of DO NOT TOUCH signs, for obvious reasons, an official was on hand to show how the edging included brightly contrasting fabric:

This double sided piece made of hexagons was getting a lot of attention. It is a lovely idea, but one of those where you would need to plan round your display space. I’m guessing most of us don’t have a place where this could be properly appreciated:

And finally for today, a demonstration of how some simple folding techniques can give a quilt design a lift:

A starry quilt

Some time in the last century, I bought a set of fat quarters. It could have been around 1998. Ever since then, I have been getting them out, deciding I want to do something really nice with them, and putting them away again.

Then I found a pattern of big wonky stars, in bright colours on a white background. I liked the design, but it occurred to me that all that plain space could be made up of my toning rose prints.

So I set to work. I wanted to make sure I used as much of the roses as possible, so I made it a bit bigger, and I put the pieces together as I went. The result is that the stars are a bit sparce. And the lesson is don’t tinker with a perfectly good design without thinking it through first!

I decided to make some more stars. I cut 2″ squares of paper, and then some random paper triangles to keep the wonky theme going and did what seems to be called English patchwork these days. After I had oversewn the shapes together I hemmed them down. By the time I’ve quilted round them, they blend in nicely. The original idea was to quilt stars in the spaces, but with all the pattern on the fabric it didn’t show up. So a few more stars works well.

So here is the finished quilt. To be honest, I’m not sure if this is totally finished. I think it might need one more star. But that might be too much. I’m not putting the yellow fabrics away just yet, in case I decide it does need that extra star. But as you can see, when it is on the back of the sofa, all you can see is the pretty rose prints.

So now I see those roses much more regularly than I did.

So that is a result!

Quilted people at the Festival of Quilts 2019

This group of pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, is really impressive.

These fabulous creations show various techniques for representing people.

The quilt of Cinderella and the ugly sisters on the left is by Beverley Rebelo, from Antrim. She has used lots of different materials and embelishments, including Inktense crayons, and hand and machine embroidery to create a whole range of patterns.

You certainly need a design board to acheive the photographic effect. It must take many hours just to get the pieces of fabric in the right order, ready to sew together.

The first photographic quilt is of Audrey Hepburn, made in inch squares of grey and white. It took Robyn Martin from Mt Mellum, Austrailia, two years to complete. One of the pictures includes a close up showing my hand, to emphasis the scale:

The next is a picture of a picnic under a tree:

Now another face, this time by Catriona Haggart, from Edinburgh has made a portrait of Prince:

The next one is called Stories of St Nicholas, and has been made by a group for the church in Fyfield, Essex:

There was a whole section of work by Tatiana Sinitsina, an architect from Moscow who has been a keen patchworker since the 1990s:

And finally, some other quilts involving people:

Shaded patchwork at the Festival of Quilts 2019

Today’s collection of pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, shows some of the effecs that can be achieved when you use a wide range of colours within a very limited palette.

Most quilts depend on the cntrast between the “pattern” and the “background” fabrics, but here the colour gradually fades away, leaving the quilting to continue the design.

This effect certainly takes a lot of planning and will power!

Two colour quilts at the Festival of Quilts 2019

I was planning to split this collection of pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, into two posts, one for red and white, and one for blue and white.

But when I went through the pictures, there were not as many red ones as I remembered.

It still shows how much variety you can make out of a very linited pallette.

And by the way, notice the quilt for the 50th anniversary of walking on the moon in this set:

Miniature quilts at the Festival of Quilts 2019

Today’s selection of pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, is a collection of minature quilts.

To enter this class, quilts must be no more than 30cms on the longest side. In a photo where there is no indication of scale, it should look like a full sized quilt or wall hanging.

I haven’t cropped these pictutes much, so you get more idea of the size.

Sampler quilts at the Festival of Quilts 2019

If you look on Pinterest, you will find all manner of designs for sampler quilts. A sampler gives you the chance to explore a range of blocks and sew them together into a finished quilt, or a cushion if you are less ambitious.

You can tie it all together with a colour scheme, or limit yourself to a theme lioke stars.

You can decide on one size for your block, or work it so that several sizes fit together.

As you can see here, you can even make it into a book hanging, if you are clever enough to handle perspective at the same time.

One sampler deserves a group of pictures on its own, as the main “sampler” section is so small, as you can see from the picture of my hand:

This one is more like a series of panels:

Birds at the Festival of Quilts 2019

Today’s collection of pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, is about birds.

Those who follow this blog regularly will not be surprised to see several peacocks here. Well, I can’t help it if other people find them inspiring as well, can I?

And just look at the range of colours in the border of this one on the left. Isn’t that fab?

The dragon caught my eye for two reasons. Firstly, his “breath” is an unusual use of hexagons. And then, just look at how the body is made up. Random scraps to make up the body, with only a very general attempt to follow the shapes. Some carefully shaped black lines give shape to the tail, while the other plain black pieces give shape to the rest of it. Very clever

The pastel birds are very clever as well.

One other in this group needs singling out. I especially like this one. The same image is used with different combinations of the same colour palette, giving surprisingly different effects. But look at that quilting, with the colour of thread used for each feather’s thread being slightly different:

Quilting taking centre stage at the Festival of Quilts 2019

An awful lot is written about patchwork, but sometimes the quilting is the most important part of the design.

These pictures from the Festival of Quilts 2019 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham show what a difference it can make.

The quilt on the left has a peacock that is almost entirely made of quilting.

Then there is the idea of having a multicoloured piece of fabric and quilting a variety of patterns over it:

The next example has some basic patchwork, but the quilting in different coloured threads pays little attention to the patterns made by the fabrics:

Then finally, here are some more that were dominated by their quilting. The cream one was awarded “Highly Commended” in its class. I overheard someone saying “If you have to put in that much work to get Highly Commended, what is the point?”

Which seems a little harsh…