We made it to the Festival of Quilts. All the way to Birmingham and back. There were spots, fabric strips, bundles of fabric to touch and enjoy, dresses to admire (and seams to deconstruct), galleries to browse, and - lots and lots of hand-stitching. Something has very suddenly come up here, so I'm going to share a few images with you now and follow up later with more info and details once I find my feet.

Let's start with the paper-piecing. Oh, the time! And the effort!

I took a photograph of the quilter's name as well, and can you believe it - it blurred. I think it was from this gallery though. Will find out, as it is rather incredible! Note to self: write down quilters' names. This one was definitely a team-quilt called "Grandmother and..." something. Grr.

There were a few themes that really stood out this year. There were quite a few quilts featuring bees (very topical), and a lot more traditional quilts than I've seen before. Many muted low-volume quilts with beautiful quilting detail.


There were a lot of very time-consuming paper-pieced quilts.


There was a lot of bold colour and glitter. There were also quilters from all around the world - you can see more information on each gallery and collection here.

There were a lot of art quilts - - and quite a lot of wordy quilts.



I was particularly intrigued and impressed by a series of quilts by Annabel Rainbow. They're first sketched out and quilted. Then, they're painted quite beautifully on top of the layers of fabric, wadding, and stitching. I love the union of words and images and ink.