The Festival of Quilts
House of Quinn enters The Festival of Quilts 2017
The Festival of Quilts is one of Europe largest quilt shows. It hosts international quilts and quilters in a four day event that spans across the Birmingham NES in the UK. It is one of the most visited quilt events in the UK and I took it upon myself to enter a quilt. In fact I made a very bold move to enter two quilts.
As someone new to quilting, I decided to enter to give it ago. I have been admiring work from many famous and well know quilter and textiles artists and one of the great things about The Festival of Quilts is that it opens up submissions to lots of different quilting and creative textile categories.
I found two that I was interested in. One was the very well know Fine Art quilt category, where lots of quite big names in quilting submit their creations, and the other was the creative quilt category, which is aimed at anyone who wants to be a bit more open to interpretation and not so traditional.
I was thinking back to when I was younger and before I went to university I worked in an amazing fabric shop in the heart of Cornwall called Truro Fabrics and each week the local quilters would come in and get their supplies. Riffling through the fabrics and spending hours strolling along the vast shelves of quilting cotton that we had at the time. It was a dream job as a young creative person. It is funny how life reverts you back to things that at the time you didn’t pay to much attention to and now I find myself quilting.
So, categories decided, two quilts to make and not a huge amount of time to do it in, I set out to make two of the best quilts I had made. (bearing in mind I had only made three quilts up until the point).
The first was focused on using up materials from garments and spare fabric. It was constructed from a length of double silk organza, a Japanese inspired kimono handed down to me by my Nan, some coated cotton in metallic silver and some silk paint. This collection of materials formed into the Lowen quilt which you can see here and become my entry to the creative quilt category. Where it picked up mixed reviews…; judged by a panel of experts this quilt mas majority appreciated by the judges, but they offer you some constructive criticism. On the most part they liked the work and I was pleased that it was put on display in the quilt hall along side other quilts by amazing quilt makers.
My second quilt, which was the entry to the fine art quilt category did not get displayed, but it did get judged. The quilt was quite a person narrative inspired by feelings of insecurity, and a struggle with mental health and my personal appearance.
entitled, ‘Again’ the quilt explored the theme of self perception, and the process of working through a series of thoughts that are always changing and moving as you define yourself and the way you think/are viewed by others. It was a dream state concept of collaged images contrasting hard and soft, feminine and masculine and the phrases “again” and “you are”.
I created a short time lapse video of myself creating the quilt “again”. Which you can watch below.
* if you want to find out more about the fabric store I used to work in, it is Truro Fabrics and you can find them here at www.Trurofabrics.com
