Sunday, September 09, 2007
Time for reflection
I cannot believe that what was the summer has now slid into autumn and time for all the quilting shows to start again.
It all kicked off at the NEC in August with the Festival of Quilts. I visited over three days this year with my friend Carin who lives in Tokyo but visits her father in Stockholm every summer. She and I are quilting buddies and we both entered the same categories Small Wallhanging and Miniature Quilts. It is always great fun to do this especially on year when our entries were hung opposite each other. However, this year I reckon that Carin was very unlucky not to have won a prize for her wonderful crazy patchwork miniature. It was quite exquisite and the more you looked into it, the more you could see the detail of the tiny embroidery stitches and the great ideas she has for the embellishment. Next year, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she pulls it off and wins a prize. It will be well deserved.
We wandered around the show for the three days and were amazed at the quality of the quilts on show. I think that there were less quilts in the open categories this year but they were of a very high standard and I expect the judges had a difficult time choosing the winners. I personally fell in love with a large contemporary quilt by Philippa Naylor and was amazed it hadn't won a prize. I love all of Philippa's quilts as they are of such high quality machine quilting and look just as good close up as they do from afar. Even after three days, I still didn't see everything on show however, the atmosphere was great and very international. I met up with a lot of friends I only see in Birmingham each year as well as an ex student, Pat Leberman, who was in the UK on a visit from her new home in New Zealand. All in all it was a very happy weekend and Carin and I parted on Birmingham International station on Monday morning - she to return to London for a few days before flying back to Stockholm and me to take the train back to Norwich. All went well with the connections and I would recommend the train trip to anyone who didn't want to drive. It takes about four hours.
Just before travelling to Birmingham, I had been informed that my cot quilt 'I wonder as I wander' had been juried into the Houston show this year again. It is always a thrill to have this confirmation as the competition is really strong and to be picked out is a great honour. The EDP got to hear of this and came around to take some photos and some (dubious) notes for publication. The finished article was published a couple of weeks ago both in the EDP and the North Norfolk News. A bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously.
The weekend after I returned from Birmingham I was involved with the C & TA Association's 'Walk with the Warp' weekend and ended up knitting socks in the garden of the Maddermarket theatre on the Saturday afternoon. Luckily the weather was fine and sunny and the company was good. All in all, the weekend went very well and I hope made a lot of money. It was good to be able to help remind the people of Norwich what their heritage really was.
The next C & TA event will be the Textile Fair at Wolterton Hall next weekend. As always, I am sure it will be full of interest with lots of tempting trade stalls to spend our money.
Should you want to see what I have been up to recently, my website www.jacquieharvey.co.uk will keep you up to date. There are a few new photographs and some more awards collected along the way.
I do hope to see some of you who may be visiting the Quilters' Guild events and Chilford later in the year.
Until then, happy quilting
Jacquie
It all kicked off at the NEC in August with the Festival of Quilts. I visited over three days this year with my friend Carin who lives in Tokyo but visits her father in Stockholm every summer. She and I are quilting buddies and we both entered the same categories Small Wallhanging and Miniature Quilts. It is always great fun to do this especially on year when our entries were hung opposite each other. However, this year I reckon that Carin was very unlucky not to have won a prize for her wonderful crazy patchwork miniature. It was quite exquisite and the more you looked into it, the more you could see the detail of the tiny embroidery stitches and the great ideas she has for the embellishment. Next year, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she pulls it off and wins a prize. It will be well deserved.
We wandered around the show for the three days and were amazed at the quality of the quilts on show. I think that there were less quilts in the open categories this year but they were of a very high standard and I expect the judges had a difficult time choosing the winners. I personally fell in love with a large contemporary quilt by Philippa Naylor and was amazed it hadn't won a prize. I love all of Philippa's quilts as they are of such high quality machine quilting and look just as good close up as they do from afar. Even after three days, I still didn't see everything on show however, the atmosphere was great and very international. I met up with a lot of friends I only see in Birmingham each year as well as an ex student, Pat Leberman, who was in the UK on a visit from her new home in New Zealand. All in all it was a very happy weekend and Carin and I parted on Birmingham International station on Monday morning - she to return to London for a few days before flying back to Stockholm and me to take the train back to Norwich. All went well with the connections and I would recommend the train trip to anyone who didn't want to drive. It takes about four hours.
Just before travelling to Birmingham, I had been informed that my cot quilt 'I wonder as I wander' had been juried into the Houston show this year again. It is always a thrill to have this confirmation as the competition is really strong and to be picked out is a great honour. The EDP got to hear of this and came around to take some photos and some (dubious) notes for publication. The finished article was published a couple of weeks ago both in the EDP and the North Norfolk News. A bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously.
The weekend after I returned from Birmingham I was involved with the C & TA Association's 'Walk with the Warp' weekend and ended up knitting socks in the garden of the Maddermarket theatre on the Saturday afternoon. Luckily the weather was fine and sunny and the company was good. All in all, the weekend went very well and I hope made a lot of money. It was good to be able to help remind the people of Norwich what their heritage really was.
The next C & TA event will be the Textile Fair at Wolterton Hall next weekend. As always, I am sure it will be full of interest with lots of tempting trade stalls to spend our money.
Should you want to see what I have been up to recently, my website www.jacquieharvey.co.uk will keep you up to date. There are a few new photographs and some more awards collected along the way.
I do hope to see some of you who may be visiting the Quilters' Guild events and Chilford later in the year.
Until then, happy quilting
Jacquie
# posted by Jacquie Harvey @ 8:59 AM 
