You might be forgiven for thinking that there would be nothing
for a dressmaker at a quilt festival, but think again!
BEHIND
THE SEAMS
With Wendy Ward
The kudos of winning one of the awards
is the primary prize but there is also
a total of over £25,000 in prize money
available across the categories! The judges
that score all the entries also leave cards
on some of their favourite pieces that
didn’t win, highlighting them as ‘Judge’s
Choice’ or ‘Specially Commended’. It’s
obvious that the competitions are taken
very seriously and are an important part
of the show.I
visited The Festival of Quilts at
Birmingham’s NEC this August. This is a
well-established event in the textile show
calendar that describes itself as Europe’s
leading patchwork and quilt show.For a long time I have admired the skill
and design that goes into patchwork and
quilting and some of the fi nished results
really appeal to me. I fi nd the social
history of how quilting has evolved from a
necessity into an art form fascinating and
have been inspired by the way it’s often
used to give a voice to divisive political and
social issues. In my own patchwork journey
I have dabbled as far as a small wonky
quilt that I display as a wall hanging. It
uses various fragments of clothing and
textiles from mine and my partner’s family,
and I do love to incorporate the odd bit
of patchwork inspiration (both spirit and
style) into my dressmaking projects.COMPETITIONS
If you’ve ever been to a big sewing show
such as the Knitting & Stitching show,
Handmade Fair or the Stitching, Sewing
& Hobbycrafts show, the format will be
familiar. There are shopping opportunities,
workshops, demonstrations and galleries
but something completely unfamiliar to
dressmakers and particular to quilting
shows are the competitions. At The
Festival of Quilts there were 14 distinct
competition categories from Contemporary
Quilts to Quilt Creations, plus a Best In
Show award.BEHIND
THE SEAMS
What can
QUILTING
teach us?
GALLERIES
The competitions are
inspiring and a joy to view
and are open to anyone to
enter, but there are also has
several curated galleries and
exhibitions throughout the
event. I found a lot of these
galleries really inspiring and
they were packed full of a high
level of craftsmanship, artistry
and design skill. I really get
the sense that there is an
appreciation and celebration
of experience and expertise
over celebrity within the
quilt world, something that
defi nitely isn’t as evident in the
dressmaking world.There were some solo artist
galleries, and I particularly
loved Dianna Harrison’s Traces
In Cloth show in which she
explored the beauty of marks
left behind on fabric from
processes such as stitching and
folding that are unpicked and
unfolded after being bleached, over dyed or
over printed.Work from quilt groups and curated
galleries were also full of inspiration. My
favourites were Best of Quiltcon (a big US
show showcasing modern quilting), Art Quilt
Fusion (a European group of international
textile artists) and Fine Art Quilt Masters
(an internationally juried competitionOne of my favourite
pieces in the Quilt
Creations category
by Milena Zdravkova58 http://www.lovesewingmag.co.ukBehind the seams.indd 58 19/09/2017 14:42