FOQ 2011 - Festival of Quilts

   

Three quirkies were brave enough to enter quilts in this years festival of quilts at the NEC, Birmingham.  So of course we had to travel there to see them!!

HW

    

CD

CB

The FoQ goes on for 4 days, but when you need to work to pay for your quirky habits it can only be sampled at the weekend, so for the quirkies this meant up and out for 7:30 am.  Quirkies don't do early starts easily.

We pulled into the carpark at the hotel we'd decided to stay in at 9:30am, plenty of time to double check that our reservation was noted as a late, 9pm check in (you will need this information later!) and jumped onto the courtesy bus over to the NEC in time to join the longest queue in the building to get in through the main door.... and ta-dah! We were there!!

The quilts are simply overwhelming, so many, so fabulous, so many, so colourful, so many, so textured, so many ....... simply so many.  Did we tell you how many there were?

As well as the quilts there are the galleries devoted to a quilter, group or theme...... Jennie Rayment's (http://www.jennierayment.com/)  was lovely and two quirkies felt a little smug that they have a whole weekend workshop booked in with Jennie for later this year.

The other thing to overwhelm is the workshops....at a previous FoQ one of the quirkies had missed out on all the workshops so she thought she'd try to book into five on the basis that she would get at least some of the five she fancied.  Well the fates had other ideas so she finished up with all five workshops and spent the greater part of the festival sitting and learning:

                  

         

Paula Doyle : Mini Mosaic - Green Mountain Quilts Studio : http://www.greenmountainquilts.com/
Sandie  Lush : Colonial Knots : http://www.sandielush.co.uk/

Jenni Stewart-Anderson : Rag Rugs : http://www.jenni.ragrugs.freeuk.com/
Lucy Garvin: Hand Sewing with 12 Weight Thread : www.wonderfil.net
Dawn Cameron-Dick : Invisable Machine Applique : http://www.morningstarquilts.com/

The quirkies day ended with each of us in a separate three hour evening class. Fortified by baked potatoes we set out to learn as much as we could from a focussed 3 hour class. 

Transfer Dyeing :  Mary Gamester : http://www.mary-gamester.co.uk/

  for CD 

Bella Lane : Goldwork : http://www.bembroidery.co.uk

  for HW.

Evening Star - Fondation : Norah McMeeking : http://www.bellabellaquilts.com/

 for CD

Satisfyingly tired we boarded the courtesy bus back to the hotel ready to prop up our  feet and quaff grape juice.....Quirkies do grapejuice well.

But oh - what is this ?

It seems that the silly hotel people have ignored the 9pm check in time on our booking and given the room away!  Quirkies aren't amused by poor service, but it seems as though we have to grit our teeth and bear it and find our weary way to the alternative room (I can state that a few choice words were uttered but are not printable),  which proves to be our hobson's choice.  We eventually got our grape juice - served by a fabulous barman who recognisd that unhappy quirkies need cold wine in cold glasses served by cheeky jokes.  Quirkies like cheeky barmen.

Day 2 brought more workshops, more shopping and more viewing of quilts.

By the time the quirkies started to queue in the main hallway to collect their quilts they were sufficiently quilted out to need muffins and tea for sustenance.  Quilts collected (hyper efficiently) from the organising staff, loaded into the car and off back along the M40.  All things considered a good run back into London for a Sunday night - home just in time to unpack and stroke all the fabric and thread bought for future projects......


Some our Fave's from the weekend....