ViDerTextil

At the FoQ, on Friday I had a meeting planned with Emma.

She’s got a shop (au fil d’Emma) and a stand at SteMarieAuxMines  , she’s got a blog with interesting videos (atelier d’Emma ) and another blog with her textile creations (Emma creations  ). We took the time to chat a little before she went back home.

I also met –again- Camille.
Remember my stay in Dijon at the 4SaisonsDuPatch?
Camille had a workshop where you could design your own fabric. You make a colored drawing on an A4 paper and then she makes a sample fabric of it.

Well here is my result …

Above you see the paper version, under the fabric, which is wonderful soft pure cotton. More information you can find on her site (creez votre tissu ).
 Don’t hesitate to try the adventure!

She’s fun, always smiling, it must be a joy to be next to her on a fair!

In Birmingham she had a big stand (Il était une fois) with the fabrics of her and mums design (look at their blog …  ), mostly for cute child coverlets or some feminine stuff, with the advantage that they have coordinating more ‘filling-design’ fabrics too.

And I bought some for a quilt for my little grandchild (coming soon!).

As you can see below, it’s very sturdy and masculine: all little and big cars in the colors that fit with my home. And with some nice teddy bears too. So when he’ll be coming here, he will have his own little quilt. I have already the pattern in my head; just have to make it…

PS à Camille = merci des petits dessins en plus!

And on another booth I found these labels

And some other fabrics from the African Fabric Shop (will be in SteMarie too) and some (no classic blue ones) from Hungarian Kekfesto .

But it’s not all buying, it’s also learning!

You already read I had a lecture from Mably, but there was also one by Sue Marks (Dr Susan Beryl Marks) about “Patchwork in the Parlour”.
It was about the Victorian parlour where the lady of the house could best demonstrate her artistic taste and refinement.
She gave us a glimpse behind the curtains to see how she and her daughters decorated and embellished their homes with patchwork, from tea cozies to mantel covers.

It was very interesting to learn some more about history. She had also some wonderful old samples with her and we could touch it!!! Gorgeous silks and velvets and satins....
In the hall were some other pieces to be seen from the collection of the British Quilters’ Guild, Museum York.

On Saturday we had a lecture from Katriina Flensburg about ‘environmental impact on artistic expression’.
She’s a Scandinavian quilt artist who told us about her search to the effects of environmental factors such as social interaction, geographic location and commercial environment on the output of quilters in general.
She made a survey among colleagues from various countries and showed and explained us where she noticed differences or similitudes.
All highlighted with slides with a lot of pictures.

Very interesting and you start looking quite differently to quilts afterwards.

She had also an exhibition stand at the Festival.

http://www.katriinaflensburg.se/

Besides those lectures, Liliane and I had a workshop with Fiona Wilson. She was at the stand of the ‘Graduate Showcase’ at the Festival in 2009.

http://fiona-wilson.blogspot.com/

The work session was about making a little work (to be framed) experimenting with bonding, knotting and simple running stitch on bonded and translucent fabrics.
We all left with a beautiful little panel.
The workshop itself was relaxing, fun and very well prepared. A brown envelope contained all we needed to start.
I keep a good souvenir of those 90 minutes!

Let’s go back to the exhibition hall.
On the wall near the restaurant area, was a huge quilt of little houses.
Soooooo beautiful!
Look…

And can you imagine how neat the stands are before 10am?
It doesn’t stay as clean and empty like on this pictures         -J-

This year, there were finally enough places to sit down while eating something warm or cold or your own pick nick. It took several years to the management to understand that we like to put our butt on a seat and not on the ground. If they would understand this in L’Aiguille en Fête in France too … it would be nice!

And for those who couldn’t come … just see the map below of the hall and I’m sure you want to be there next time too.

Next posting will be about some other quilts I like, and about the quilts of the competition area, but I already want to finish with the ‘wrong’ ones, just as last year, and the years before…
I pity for those quilters who don’t have friends or a teacher to tell them what they are doing wrong…

I agree with the organization that everyone must have the opportunity to exhibit and enter a quilt in the competition, so they don’t refuse entrees, but really, a little notion of basic technique should be required.

What not to do:

Curling the quilts : view from the right

Put a sleeve anyhow on the quilts : view of top quilts

Playing accordion with the quilts : view under

view them from any side …