Another day, another show

This one was just a leeeeeetle bit big than the village extravaganza, though no more important to its participants than those earnestly preparing vegetables into triangles on Saturday morning; on Sunday we went to the International Quilt Show at the NEC.

I say we, with good reason. H, despite having experienced last year showed a willingness to attend a gathering of fabricy goodness filled with women that belies his protestations and makes me suspect that actually he might enjoy it. That or the wool and fabric fumes are warping his mind. Poor boy.

The exhibition had the same wonderful mix of quilts that you desperately wanted to snuggle up under, and quilts that were definitely art, and some that you just can't categorise,



Quilted sunflowers and lilies - it's a verdant imagination that comes up with that and then puts it into practice!

So, in the spirit of a picture being worth a thousand words, is a little essence of the show.


You may need to click on this one to see it bigger in Flickr, it's a 2D quilter's dream of a dolls house with classes, lectures, a quilt show and a fabric shop, and my favourite touch, in the bottom right hand corner is a lady chasing a guy with a pair of scissors.

Do we need to explain why I like this one? It is properly knitted fabric as far as I could make out. It's cream in real life but the lighting at the NEC is decidedly orange, even on a bright sunny day.

Silhouettes are in vogue in quilts:


My favourite is the people in the beach in the top one, I like the diver, and the bottom one makes me feel a little uncomfortable, I think it's their body language, it's almost a scene from The Children of Men

Then we had the 3d quilts:

Most of these owls pop out from the background including the very cute fluffy chicks on the branch.


And this fuzzy bee (together with the bunny's eyes). That quilt is all little squares and the rigorous planning needed to put it all in order and keep it in order is staggering.

The red arrows in quilt form.

Shirt sleeves, laid onto squares of suit material - the backing was squares from the shirts pieced together.

Black and white was another theme.

This next quilt was made by laying white over black and cutting away the white to answer the age old question -

Are they white with black stripes, or black with white?


And then my favourite theme of all - the beach


This quilt used photo blocks and then carried the shapes on into the next block by applique; the top right is instantly recognisable as the Bass Rock by Edinburgh.



We did just perhaps also make a tiny wee trip around the market and I may just have come home with a jelly roll or two for my next quilts. Whilst recognising that this way lies fabric stashing to the same extent of the yarn I can partially defend my position in that I have used almost all of the fabric and kits that I bought last year, so I have high hopes of being able to do the same again this year. (Feel free to laugh hollowly).

It was a fantastic trip out and the day was iced with a cherry when we got home in time to see the last Australian wickets fall and the Ashes come back home again - yippee!