Great Northern Quilt & Needlecraft Show, Harrogate 2018

The Solway Quilters had an enjoyable day out at the Quilt Show in Harrogate yesterday. A whole coach load of us went, so it was a jolly party that arrived just before lunchtime.

My friend, Margaret, and I started with the exhibition in the atrium, which included some beautiful work by a number of individual makers and groups. The following pieces really stood out for me:-

Summer Garden by Jane Rollason, sun printing and flower hammering on cotton

The flowered section is coloured by literally bashing the colour from flower heads directly onto the fabric. The sun printing, I was not familiar with, so, as a group, we may explore that in future tutorials. Apparently, as well as using pre-prepared fabrics, you can buy liquids to paint onto any fabric, which will 'bleach' where they are masked by a leaf, for example.

Elizabethan Flowers by Jane Rollason, silk patchwork, appliqué and painted

I really liked the bright, painted flowers 'popping' off the cream and gold background. The beaded border was a nice touch, and suggested the clothing worn by Elizabeth I.

Coastal Walks by Christine Vlietstra. "Inspired by images of the coastline". Strip pieced and raw-edge piecing. Cotton fabrics, hand and machine quilted.

This lovely abstract art quilt appealed to my love of the sea, lines and hand stitch. It had the lot! With a lot of contrasts in the colour palette of blues and yellows with a touch of red.

Scandinavian Jumpers 2 by Gillian Travis "This quilt won 2nd prize at FOQ in the Art Quilt category...".

This was one of my absolute favourites: the artist has used machine embroidery and freehand machine embroidery on felt. The shapes are cut out from the background so that the contrasting jumper shape is recessed to be even with the background, when slotted in and hand stitched in place. The background squares were printed with a lacy pattern. There was also a Breton jumper variation, with stripes. Too cute!

Silver Darlings by Lizzie Wall

This beautiful cushion had won the 1st prize in the cushions category, and you can see why! The technique is appliqué with broderie perse elements, used to great effect.

Flower Garden by Anne Senior

A charming hexagons quilt. I think this was made with the English Paper Piecing technique.

Postcard From Sweden by Liz Merckel. Designed by Jeli Quilts and based on a postcard from IKEA by Tom Frazier. 36 colours of Kona cotton with a half-square triangle block.

This really shows what you can do with plain colours and a single shape. There is a great deal of movement and interest in the layout of the colours: love it!

Homecoming: Return of the White Rabbit by Lizzie Wall. The White Rabbit returns home after his adventures in Alice in Wonderland.

See 'work in progress' images on Lizzie's Instagram account. Another very imaginative and beautifully-realised art quilt. I love the red squirrels along the top border. There is so much detail to see in this quilt that you could study it for hours.

There were so many beautiful quilts to see, but I can only show a fraction of them here.

After a tasty lunch in the cafe, it was on to the trade stands. There were thousands of different fabrics on offer, but I resisted most of them, buying some vintage and antique kimono fabric pieces from Susan Briscoe's stand. This talented author and teacher is holding courses in Edinburgh and Hartburn in the next few months. Details can be found on her website.

I also bought bronze-coloured charms to use on some 'Prayer Flag Brooches' that I am planning to make. Very sweet, miniature keys, a feather, a wolf, a spider, some bells and beads etc.

A fun - if tiring - day out was had by all :o)

Morton Community Centre Exhibition - 10 Year Anniversary of the Quilting Group

Many thanks to my friend, Babette, for discovering and taking me to this lovely quilt exhibition today.

The Morton Community Centre is a wonderful setting for the exhibition, with Victorian mouldings, an impressive, sweeping staircase, dark wooden furniture and panelling. The exhibition was spread out over several of the rooms and the Just Sew shop from Penrith had a stand selling fabrics, patterns, threads etc.

One of the first quilts we came to and both admired was made by a friend of Babette's, Freda Hodgson. It was based on a quilt by Susan Briscoe and showcased beautiful Japanese fabrics in appliquéd kimono shapes.

Apologies for the blurry, dark photos, but the lighting was quite dim to protect the quilts on display.

Freda said that she had taken several years to complete the quilt and had almost thrown it away several times. Thank goodness she persisted! The framing and border were the sticking points, as she wanted colours that would complement and unify the piece.

As well as the large bed quilts, there were numerous smaller art quilts. This one caught my eye (I could not see the maker's details) but their statement label said that it was inspired by an oriental quilt and depicts the four seasons with borders representing the four elements (wood, fire, water and metal). The Japanese-style chrysanthemum in the middle was made from loose, appliquéd petals giving it a three dimensional look.

This gorgeous Baltimore sampler wall hanging was made by Catherine Edgar using hand appliqué and quilting. The technique was taught by Yvonne Bodecott at classes held by Just Sew in Penrith. The chrysanthemum heads were very textured and three-dimensional.

'God's Will' pattern quilt by Viva Collins. I love the garden-like palette of this quilt and the perfect mix of light, medium and dark tones. The simple pattern of squares and strips looks quite do-able. I can imagine making something similar from the scraps in my stash. The strips could all be the same fabric to give some unity to the scraps.

A pair of memory lap quilts made by Trish Charlesworth from her late husband's shirts. These poignant quilts must hold many memories for the maker, and I really loved the designer's use of the striped, plain and checked patterns and different tones found in the shirts. A great way of recycling old shirts, too - always readily found in charity shops if you don't have your own supply.

These images show details of an amazing, hand sewn quilt that was made by a lady sitting next to the sick bed of a relative, made from all of her nylon, 1960s/70s dresses and other outfits. It is an unfinished top, donated to the Quilting Group by the maker, and was shown to us as part of a 'show and tell' session. Although the fabrics won't feel as nice to the touch as the cotton ones more usually used for patchwork, this would have been the piece I took home if it had been for sale. It is a wonderful example of the exuberant use of the materials to hand, and conveys the many hours of devotion (both to the sewing and construction, and to the sick relative). Some of the dresses must have been very eye-catching indeed. The vivid patterns and mixture of colours have been skillfully scattered over the surface to provide a good balance of tones and contrast. It just shows what can be done with a seemingly disparate collection of fabrics.

'After The Storm' by Catherine Edgar. This art quilt was machine pieced, appliquéd and quilted. It was made for an exhibition challenge on the theme of 'The Sea'. I particularly liked the rocks and white wave crests in this piece - very effective.

There was a raffle to win a cushion: each of the twenty or so cushions had a bag pinned to it, and you put your raffle ticket in the bag attached to the cushion you hoped to win. The winning ticket will be drawn from each bag. I chose a simple, small cushion with a delicately-coloured floral fabric and a completely different one with carved white faux 'fur' fabric. Fingers crossed! Babette liked one made from tweed fabrics and one with a French theme. I also liked both of those, but felt that the ones I picked would suit our decor better.

A great exhibition, finished off nicely with a cup of coffee and a chat in the restaurant. We both agreed on what a great resource the centre was for the area, with its café, numerous meeting rooms, a large park area at the back and even a beauty room and hairdressers on site.

Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate 2017

The Solway Quilters made a trip to the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate on 2 September 2017.

Here are some of the quilts that were exhibited, together with the makers' labels and comments (when I remembered to get photos of them!). Click on any picture to see a larger version.

The exhibition was surprisingly quiet. Nice for those of us looking round, but I expect the organisers and trade stands would have liked more customers.

 

 We were just making a (luckily!) complimentary comment about this large number of beautiful quilts all made by Janet Keenan, when she came up behind us and had a chat about her work. She also teaches in the Merseyside area.

 

 This quilt top (above) was completed in one day!

 Margaret admiring part of the display.

This was one of my very favourite quilts - I love the stylised flowers and the bright Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

This was another favourite: English paper piecing in tiny hexagons set in groups of four. Part of the display by linapatchwork.com, a company that sell templates and/or patterns for the four quilts shown above.

 I liked this almost abstract landscape art quilt. It reminded me of Philip Hughes' sketches and art work. Very subtle use of colour and mark making.

There was a very good café with a lovely view of the surrounding countryside, allowing you to sit and take a break when you'd had enough of wandering round. There were quite a number of trade stands selling all sorts of textiles, tools, threads, yarns, patterns, templates, sewing machines, trims and notions. I bought some perle cotton threads with a view to using them in wool appliqué, and some woven, shot cottons in autumnal shades to add to my fabric store, and - bargain of the day - a small roll of bobbly black trim for 50p! An inspiring day out - my only regret was that Oliver Twists weren't there. I was hoping to buy some more embroidery threads and felt from them.