It’s August (but not for much longer) and so it must be time for a report about my trip to Festival of Quilts. After last year’s whirlwind one day visit, this year I went back to a two day visit, mainly because I had the chance to meet up with some friends from an online sewing community.
We had been running a little challenge to make quilts for Project Linus using only two colours and neutrals, with the colours having to be complementary on the colour wheel. There was also going to be a competition element to the challenge with the finished quilts being put to a vote.
I had seen a quilt in Lynne Goldsworthy’s book “Quick and Easy Quilts” which had a red balloon appliqued to a neutral log cabin background. By adding a second balloon I was able to meet the two colour requirement, though I knew that this design would be regarded as stretching the rules and wouldn’t do me any favours when it came to the voting. Adding the second balloon meant I could make a larger quilt as these tend to be in short supply for Project Linus.
To avoid any raw edges on the balloons, I used an interfacing technique to enclose the raw edges and then used a blanket stitch on my machine to attach the balloon to the quilt top. The strings were made from a tube of fabric and applied to the quilt top with a straight stitch.
I did echo quilting around the balloons and the strings and then quilted in the ditch for the body of the balloons. The rest of the quilting was just diagonal straight lines. The backing was a cotton lawn from Standfast and Barracks which picked up the neutral theme from the front and went well with the dark binding.
It was lovely to meet up with friends from the forum and to see all the quilts being handed over to Project Linus. As expected, mine was not a winning quilt, but my priority was to make a quilt suitable for an older child and not the competition side of things.
No trip to Festival of Quilts would be complete without a little bit of shopping and I actually managed to come back with some money left in my purse this year.
With visiting for two days, I had time to attend a lecture about geometric design in Islamic art by Eric Broug. I found the way the designs can be created fascinating and I will have to try to make time to try this for some EPP designs.
As usual I had mixed feelings about the quilts and I am thinking now that this down to the competition element. Looking at some of the quilts hanging side by side in the same category, I felt uncomfortable that they were being judged against each other. Even though I have been going to Festival of Quilts for a few years, I found it more difficult to find my way around this year and probably missed quite a few exhibits. Galleries seemed to be more in the midst of trading stands than previously and the miniature quilts and modern quilts were over in a far corner of one of the halls away from the other categories of quilts. Perhaps it is time for the organisers to rethink the layout and to have more distinct areas for trading, quilts, galleries and catering.
