Festival of Quilts (iii)

The Festival of Quilts is in a huge undercover hall. I can't guess how big the space is, acres in size. There were, according to the show guide, over 1000 quilts. With a mere day, there was no way I could see everything.

When I look at the photos other people have taken, I don't recognise the quilts at all. It is almost as if they went to a different exhibition.

My first action on arrival was to search for the Popular Patchwork stand to see if my quilt was on display. And it was! Not very prominent, near the floor, with the table on one side and a plug socket to the other. It was on the edge of the crowd, a bit shy but trying to join in with the other brasher quilts who had jostled to the centre of the display. They had so many entrants which meant quite a lot (ten or more) weren't displayed, but they hadn't ranked them. I saw Rosalind's fairy (it was one of the few I noticed, because it had a magical theme), a witch, a voodoo head. I saw a boat shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifailing on the sea, a seashore theme, hands clasped in marriage. One of my favourites had a number of small patchwork blocks, 2 or 3 inches across. I didn't take any photos here, so you'll just have to imhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifagine a wall completely covered by small quilted pictures.

Next I looked for Ferret's works. I couldn't find her in the index: her name came after the 'Z' surnames. When I saw the Patchwork Corner stand, I asked Doug if he knew where her pieces were, but he didn't. I hope he saw them, they are good.

I looked at quilts and I looked at stalls until it was time to meet Ferret, who showed me some of her quilts and then we went for a late lunch. We'd agreed to meet at Subway, which was directly ouside the halls used for last year's exhibition. This year, the Festival had moved, so it was a long walk along the outside passage: I hope no other bloggers gave up looking for it. I left my stripy bag on the table, but we weren't hopeful of anyone turning up. Then we saw someone coming close, looking at the bag, and finally asking whether I was Penny. Hooray, we had another blogger, Caroline from Dolly Day Dream. We talked about lots of things: I can't remember all of it.

We went back into the hall together, and Ferret showed us her quilts. The nudes was very impressive: when you see the size of the squares that formed the blue one, you realise just what an undertaking it was. We started talking to another quilter, who took us to see the Egyptian picture she done. It looked like a hierograph, with some pictures in the middle as well.

Then we went to see my quilt, and on to Ferret's other ones. The Union Jack is very punk-era, a quilt for the Generation X. I don't know what the elderly quilters thought, but to me, it was iconic. The globe was good too. And so was the PCB quilt - I'm glad the batteries lasted out. Ferret and Caroline had to go, I wondered looking at my quilts. I'd left most of my shopping to the end, noting down stalls I definately wanted to go back to. As I walked to the entrance, I bought a copy of the first Elm's Creek book, and then checked out a few more quilts.

I've been to a few small quilt shows, but to only one other since I've got into making them. This was just so much larger then the church halls I'd been in before. There seemed to be more space around the quilts to view them, and it was also nice to be able to discuss them with people who were interested. However, as this post I also needed a chance to look and absorb them on my own.

I might put some more piccies up later, along with some more thoughts.