Festival of Quilts 2012 - part 1

On Friday John and I drove to the NEC in Birmingham for this years Festival of Quilts. I haven't been to this event before due to clashes of dates with other activities I do, so I was unsure exactly what to expect. Getting there was easy as it's just outside London, we got onto the M40 and it is motorway to just a couple of miles short of the venue.

Once there it was a case of getting coffee and deciding how to get the most out of the day. The number of quilts was staggering and of course there was shopping to be done, with fabrics, machines and loads of accessories on display.

I took a large number of photos and carefully made sure I took a photo of the exhibitor number and title of the quilt so I could match the number up with the name in the catalogue. Unfortunately I have managed to lose my catalogue but I can at least give you the quilt title. 

This is 'Albert the Foundry Man' by Rose Stanley part of the It Happens - Heavy Metal exhibition.

Also part of this exhibition is 'Honouring Tyneside' by Chris Dixon.

This is Kupala Night (Feast of St John the Baptist) by Alexandra Nikulina from Russia.

Another Russian quilt titled Sun-turn (Kolovorot) by the Loskutnye Zabavy Patchwork Studio led by A Nikulina.

and a final quilt from Russia titled 'A town by the sea' by Alexandra Nikulina.

This is called Turkish delight and was made in 2008.

There was a big section of quilts made by school textile groups. This one 'Diamonds' won third prize for the secondary schools. I haven't got a photo of the winning quilt in this group as I couldn't get near enough to take a picture. I actually preferred this to the winning entry.

This quilt won 3rd prize for the Young Quilter / Embroiderer 5 to 8 years.

and this was the 2nd prize winner in the same age group.

There were some amazing art quilts by textile artists from Latvia but unfortunately they did not allow photography. Have a look at the work of Elina Lusis-Grinberga and Aina Muze.

this is just a small selection of the quilts. more to follow tomorrow. Happy quilting!