Festival of Quilts, Birmingham

Last week my husband and I was in Birmingham, England. On Thursday we visited the Festival of Quilts. I showed a quilt for the first time, my "Swan Lake". No prize on the Swan, but it was fun to partisipate. The show cantained more than 1300 quilts and I'm not sure I saw all of them!

Both the Show and the vendors were well organized, but it was the opening day and it was very crowded! I had a long shopping list and got most of it before my legs didn't want to walk any more... I was at a Quilt show and didn't buy a single fabric! But a lot for mixed media - Shiva paintsticks, foil, lutradur, watercolor vax sticks, painting ink for fabric...... The catalogue also gave me a lot of links to retailors. The only thing I didn't find, was a silk screen, but I have ordered one now.

Below is the winners of the pictorial group.

# 1

"Herd Mentality" by Ferret, Bournemouth

# 2

"Night Watch" by Olga Ovsynnikova, Moscow, Russia

# 3

"Hostas after the Shower" by Patricia Collinson, Bideford

New Shibori Dyeing

I'm just now in a Shibori II dyeing class at Quilt University. The teacher is as usual Marjorie McWilliams. This weeks lesson gave some pieces I'm really pleased with.

This one is first dyed with fuchsia and the with a green dye. The colors are even more brilliant in real life. I think this one will get some prints and then be quilted. All the pieces are about

18" x 44"

This one is just beautiful. It was first dyed with yellow and then overdyed with purple. There is so much wicking here and so many different colors. This is the nice thing with Shibori dyeing - you never know how it will look before you open it.

This one will also get some additinal prints and be quilted.

Here the fabric is pleated in a random way and the sewed over the pleats. Dyed with purple and left to dry completely before rinsing. A lot of WOW's here this week!

This is how the piece above looked after dyeing and before the threads were removed. I did som free motion both with normal stiches and zik zak.

Dress finished

My dress is now finished, and I'm quite happy with the result! It's simple, but very "me".

It was not a fabric for beginners, but I think I did it worse. I'm very electric and to avoid all the sparkling, I put conditioner in the rinse. It made both the velvet and the habotai silk (for lining) VERY alive!

Kjolen min er nå ferdig og jeg er ganske fornøyd med resultatet! Den er enkel, men veldig "meg". Det var ikke et nybegynner stoff, men jeg tror jeg gjorde det enda verre. Jeg er veldig elektrisk og for å unngå all gnistringen, så hadde jeg skyllemiddel i vannet. Det gjorde både fløyelen og habotai silken ( til fòr) VELDIG levende!

This is the front. Slightly wider at the bottom.

Dette er foran. Den er litt videre nederst

Down at the back there is a "fan" with quite a lot of fabric.

Nederst bak er det en "vifte" med ganske mye stoff.

The dogs wanted to be in the picture, too, so here they are. Emma to the left and Pippi to the right.

Hundene ville også være med på bildet, så her er de. Emma til venstre og Pippi til høyre.