Loch Lomond Quilt Show 2011

Every year for the last 7 years the Loch Lomond Quilt Show has taken place in and around Dumbarton, a little town near Loch Lomond. There is a wide variety of exhibitions and they are all located in a selection of churches in and around Dumbarton itself, Alexandria and Renton. This year I exhibited 3 quilts as part of the Inspired by Scotland Exhibition together with 9 other "well-known" Scottish quilters. We showed our work in the Trinity Church in Renton which you can see above.

All 10 of us also produced a project quilt for which we made the full instructions which were then tried out by students. In due course, probably by the next show in 2012, a book will be published featuring the 10 projects and the workshop samples. Above you can see my quilt The Colours of Alba to the right and the class sample worked by students to the left. I'll write some more about this quilt in a future blog but it is a sister quilt to the Alba in Colours quilt hanging in my exhibition in Peebles.

The 3 quilts we were all asked to exhibit were firstly a typical example of your work, and I choose to exhibit the quilt above, called Foxfires, and inspired by the Northern Light as seen in my own garden here in the Scottish Borders. The extensive (some might say exorbitant) beading is a typical element in my work. This is one of my most successful quilts, winning the European Quilt Championships back in 2006. It's made entirely of silk fabrics.

The second quilt we were asked to show had to be an old favourite and above is Secret Garden Glen, made back in 1997 and made entirely out of the Secret Garden variety of Cathedral Windows. It was inspired by a country park (Kelburn), just south of Largs where we used to live. A lot of hand work, and folding and yes, even then I added beads to the mix. This is one quilt with which I have always found it impossible to part, despite having had several offers to buy it.

And thirdly we were asked to exhibit a piece of work typical of the way we are working at the moment and you will recognize the technique of the above quilt called A very fishy Affair, in other pieces currently hanging in my Peebles exhibition. This was the first one where I started using this particular collage method. It illustrates the various aspects of having an affair, secret meetings in exotic locations, hiding behind a mask etc. By the time I finished the quilt I felt like I was intimately acquainted with the lovers. Needless to say things will eventually come to a sticky end. I had so much fun finding suitable, or perhaps unsuitable fabrics (depending on your point of view) for this quilt that I was really sorry when I finished it so promptly started making more.