Knitting and Stitching Show 2011

My husband and I went on the 8th October to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace.  I had planned on subscribing to Quilters Guild of the British Isles again and found their booth.  The art quilts displayed were particularly impressive.  I especially enjoyed Mere Kats which I understand won awards at the Festival of Quilts 2011 which unfortunately I was unable to attend.  The expressions on the faces and the detail with stitch was most impressive.


I had been thinking about signing up for City and Guilds Patchwork and Quilting for a long time as I wanted to attain at least a diploma.  To my great delight I instead found the booth for the OCA and after meeting the delightful Jacqueline Jeynes I signed up for the BA (Hons) in Creative Textiles.  I have not done any disciplined studying for well over 25 years, aside from reading books about making quilts so initially this was a bit intimidating when I saw the course work.


I have for a few years now been interested in expanding from traditional quilts to art quilts.  Two of the books I had been studying before I signed up for the course are The Painted Quilt by Linda & Laura Kemshall (2007) and Contemporary Quilts Design, Surface and Stitch by Sandra Meech (2005).  I particularly like Sandra Meech's approach to design from inspiration in photography.  She travelled to the Canadian Arctic to visit the Inuit communities.  I lived in Anchorage, Alaska for 7 years before moving to England and always wanted to use my photographs from living there in some form of quilt art.  Although I find her "how to" instructions useful, I am not particularly drawn to abstract art.


Laura & Linda Kemshall's book is particularly useful being more figurative and will help me as I work through developing my sketchbooks.  I bought some markal paintsticks a few years ago and was unsure how to use them, but their section on applying colour after quilting is inspiring.  I would also like to find places to take rubbings so will do a bit of research to see if there are any places close to where I work in London that I can do that.