On Saturday I visited my favourite quilt shop, Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton, Radstock. They always have quilts on display and regularly run exhibitions. We had planned our visit this time to coincide with the Man Made Quilting exhibition.
One of the men exhibiting a quilt usually makes kites and before we went into the shop I watched the kites that he was flying in the meadow. Unfortunately I can't remember his name.
The quilt below is called Steering by Stars and was made by Peter Hayward. Each quilter wrote a bit about their quilt in the programme so I'm give you their comments. Peter wrote "this quilt took me over a year to make, and was awarded second place in its category at the annual Quilt Festival in Houston, as well as the Viewers Choice prize (just as my 'Lone Star Explores Space' had been before.) The quilt was also winner of the 'Best in Show' at the 2018 Spanish Patchwork Festival. The starting point for the quilt was the traditional Mariner's Compass pattern, but a couple of extra cardinal points somehow sneaked themselves into the central shape, and so I ended up with what you see now."
Manly by Pete Dell is the quilt below and he writes "For the first 65 years of my life I'd not really done any sewing apart from fixing my wife's machine as needed. Last year she decided to have a go at quilting and I got involved with the process of layout etc, had a play with the sewing machine and found it quite fun. I accompanied her to MQ where I met Chris and was encouraged to have a try. I then searched for a design that was 'manly' and not too complicated and eventually found the design I made. The fabrics really grabbed my attention and I think the whole thing looks like a stained-glass window. It may be my first quilt but it won't be my last!"
The quilt below is called Windmills and is by Mike Reynolds. He had several quilts in the exhibition but I can't find this one listed in the programme.
This quilt, Mountain Lake is by Trev Jones. He writes, "This is a Gail Lawther patchwork design, inspired by the work of Claris Cliffe. It's one of a series of 4 which includes 'Pine trees', Country cottage', and 'Fir tree'. I particularly like the Art Deco design and coloring coupled with the stained- glass effect."
This one is another quilt by Peter Hayward called Waves, Tides and Currents. "For this quilt I wanted to build on the idea of using turned edge fused patches to create perfect pattern matching, and once I saw a fabric based on the eddies and flows of moving water I knew that I wanted to use it. With hindsight I fear that the contrast between the six colours in the collection was perhaps not as stark as I needed it to be and this led to a less successful result that I had hoped but the whole exercise taught me a great deal and I am sure I will return to this technique in the future."
This is a second quilt by Mike Reynolds called Dark Side of the Moon. "I'm a big fan of Pink Floyd and was blown away by the Dark Side of the Moon album and thought about using the cover as inspiration. the idea looked good on paper but proved to be a nightmare to make, especially as this was the second quilt I started (but not the second one finished.) As a woodworker I am used to materials keeping their shape and size - unlike fabrics. Initially I tried to piece the design but no way would it stay in shape and getting all the seams lined up was a nightmare. Eventually advice from my wife and Judi Mendelssohn, led me to use foundation piecing for each section along with stay stitching"
This next quilt was my favourite. The batik fabrics are just so vibrant and the seams were beautifully matched. This is Lone Star by Trev Jones who writes "If you are going to do a Lone Star design, do a big one! I found this pattern on the internet and chose bright batik material. The accuracy required when joining the strips to make the eight large diamonds was daunting, together with joining the diamonds to make the star - it involved a lot of pinning and also a lot of seam ripping!"
Out of Africa by Alan Eaglestone was also impressive. "This is really a cross stitch design by Durene Jones and was adapted by my wife for me to do the patchwork. There are 15,600 individual squares and it used up almost two miles of thread."
Cube by Peter Hayward. "This was a fairly early prototype (number 5 or so out of 13) for my two day class on triaxial weaving
Another Lone Star, this time by Marius Evans. "Needing a project in the first covid lockdown, I took inspiration from a beautiful quilt my sister in law presented to us as a wedding present. On the quilt she gave us she used predominantly half square triangles, so I took the same idea but used a star as the centre piece."
Another one by Mike Reynolds titled MU3AK. "When I turned 60 I decided to learn to play guitar and eventually this led to starting a Rock and Blues Band MU3AC. The music is available on the internet. I also used my woodworking skills to make my own guitars from scratch, all of which are depicted on this little quilt."
I couldn't find the number for this little quilt but I like it so I've included it here.
Sunbonnet by Philip Steward. "This was made as part of a husband and wife challenge, organised by Maggie Relph of The African Fabric Shop, using a piece of 'Peg Fabric' in the quilt. I told Maggie that I had a good title for her challenge, and she said well go and make it. Previously I had only made three A4 size quilts and this tryptic became my first real quilt. I have a dislike for 'Sun Bonnet Sue' and this is an alternative.
Clottie by Peter Hayward although relatively small pulled a huge amount of praise. " Clottie is comprised of just under 10,000 half centimetre squares, but even with that number of pieces she still comes in at just 50 cms x 50cms. The design process was atypically rapid, as it was simply a question of pixelating a photograph and adapting it, with the help of a friend's programming skills, to my chosen colour palette. The real challenge was working with such tiny pieces of fabric, though, between the small size of the finished quilt and the number of patchwork hours there are in a lockdown day, this quilt took only a couple of months from start to finish."
There were are lot more quilts but some were difficult to photograph because of available space or lighting or position. John may have taken some different photos and if he has I'll post those next time. The show was amazing with quilts submitted by men and boys. It truly inspired me and kick started my quilting mojo back into life.
Take care
Lyndsey
