By Ros

Report by Ros

There were a number of different categories in the exhibition and here are the winners of the pictorial and contemporary sections. 

As well there were traditional quilts on display, "My first Quilts", art quilts, miniature quilts, group quilts, quilts from abroad and those created by young quilters.  The winner of a City & Guilds award was Charlotte Haenlein and her quilt was based on Nepalese hats. Below you will find a selection from these categories which you can scroll through.

Report by Ros

Our annual outing this year was to Art in Action at Waterperry House near Oxford. 

It was my second visit and I must say I enjoyed it as much this time as last however it was a very warm day.  At Art in Action there is something to interest everybody with work from a selection of the best artists, craftspeople and designers on display.  Unfortunately most of the prices were beyond our reach but it was so exciting to browse and add things to our wish list.
There were 20 stands in the textile marquee and here is a selection of our favourites. 
Sara Fordy – surface pattern using indigo.  Lovely selection of shibori dyeing and several of us had this super sofa on our wish list.

Amanda Wright – lives in St David’s with her husband, David a ceramicist. They have their own gallery in Goats Street.   Amanda uses coloured yarns on canvas with a bonded backing. Her themes are taken from the natural world focusing on the local environment and the bird life.

Carol Naylor – creates landscape designs on canvas using the machine.  Some stitching is done on the top, some from the reverse using thicker threads in the bobbin.

Roanna Wells – takes photograph image (crowd formations) and using black thread and  seed stitch, replicates the image on calico.  In Roanna's current project she uses a photo of a crowd standing by hairpin bend.  Good eye sight!

Harriett Riddle – I first saw Harriett at Alexander Place last year and immediately recognised her very distinctive work.  She draws portraits using free machine embroidery on her machine.  Recently she has visited India and exhibited several pieces of work done on the streets.

Below is a selection from other areas:
Image 1 - Tarek Abdelhay (Egypt), Tent maker from Cairo demonstrating needle-turn applique, used to decorate tents and screens for street parties, funerals in weddings.
Image 2 - Aleksander Simakov (Russia), Hand carved and painted traditional Russian wooden toys.
Image 3 - Apolonia Nowak (Poland) Traditional Paper Cutting Art.
Image 4 - Eve Maria Kelly (East Sussex), Needle felted, wool felt pictures.
Image 5 - David Wright (St David's) Ceramicist and Amanda's husband - see above
Image 6 - Market marquee - lovely jacket  (only £500 - on  my wish list!!)
Image 7 - Rosalind Wise - paints flowers and grasses where they grow naturally
For more details about other artists see the Art in Action website:  http://www.artinaction.org.uk/

My grateful thanks to Vernice for sharing some of her photos

Reported by Ros

After an early start and three pickup points, our coach arrived at the NEC about 11.00 on Thursday. I am not sure if it was my imagination, but the exhibition seemed  larger than in previous years with a wonderful selection of quilts on display  and, of course, all the traders who were eager to relieve us of our money.

On behalf of the group I would like to congratulate   Christine Seager who had two quilts on display, one on the  Contemporary Quilt stand and the second was chosen to be included in  the Fine Art Quilt Masters.  What a truly fantastic achievement, well  done Christine!

Christine's second quilt is displayed in the picture below on the left.

It was fun to bump into friends, to spot textile artists who had visited us in the past or who were well known faces in the textile world.

Here is a selection of quilts which I particularly liked.  If you have a photo of your favourite, email me a copy and I will add it.

Have a good summer and I look forward to meeting up with you all again in September.

Ros

Last week a group of us visited the NEC in Birmingham.  Our ticket covered three different exhibitions, Sewing for Pleasure, Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch and Hobby Crafts.  In addition to the retail therapy we enjoyed seeing our Macedonia Olympic postcards on display.

Brenda Hickinbottom also had her work on display.  As well as being a member of the Marlborough & District Embroidery Guild, Brenda also belongs to Meniscus Textile Artists, which are based in Rothley  Leicestershire.   The subject for their stand was "Iconic Women" and Brenda chose the ATA Spitfire pilots in the Second World War for her work. 

She tells me, her preparation included looking at photos of scenery and sky formations together with a lot of thinking time.  She then drew a rough sketch of outlines for the overall size.
 
Using  silk organza layers, trapping silk fibres and paper she free machine embroidered to  create the shapes and  textures.  Letting the machine needle and threads draw  the  design in her head as you would a pencil when drawing.

In addition to the individual projects each member of the group made an apron with a single word on it and when displayed it read:  "These aprons represent the traditional image of women but women are about more than this".

Ros