Of Immortality

Of Immortality

I should have revealed this quilt to you back in May when it was first exhibited in Germany but completely forgot to do so. It's just been on show again, this time at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last weekend and this time I'm rectifying making it public by showing it here on this blog too. The idea came from a cooperation between the German and British Quilting Guilds. Members from both guilds were invited to send a pack of fabric (about 5 fat quarters) to their own guilds and these were then exchanged so that a German quilter would receive a pack from a British quilter and vice versa. 

You can see the fabrics I send to Germany in an earlier blog post here and here. And a bit further down in this post is the fabric I received from a German quilter about whom I only know that her last name is Bitler and she lives in Bad Meunden. The fabric was okay but not at all what I usually have in my work and it took me some time to get around that problem. In the end I used two of her fabrics, added 3 of my own (2 in the body of the quilt and the gold fabric for the binding), sewed them together in a Fibonacci sequence, machine quilted the layers using straight machine stitching and then proceeded to paint the entire piece starting with a layer of white emulsion paint. I then splattered, sprayed, stencilled, stamped and in general messed around with it till I achieved something I was happy with. It took days to dry!

I then added inchies and larger pieces from a fabric paper collage I made on the theme of flowers and butterflies. The size of the quilt was a given and it had to be 16" wide by 32" long. The title came from one of the fabric paper collage pieces where I discovered it quite accidentally on one of the vintage texts I had used in the collage. I love it when coincidence or synchronicity as I like to call it, steps in to help me. 

Of course there is lots of beading too as you can see on the detailed photographs above.

the fabrics I received from the German quilter

Both guilds selected 30 works from among their submissions and these 60 works were then exhibited together with the sheet for each quilt

as can be seen above for my quilt, showing the fabrics that were used. At the top the fabrics I received from the German quilter and below that the ones I added to the mix from my own stash. In the case of my quilt this was quite useful as the fabrics can barely be recognized any more in the quilt itself.

Detail from the exhibition as it hung at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham

I wasn't in Birmingham myself to see the exhibition and it's thanks to Gillian Cooper that I can show you the two pictures here of the quilt hanging at the show. I'm hoping there will be a bit of a write-up about this exhibit somewhere as I would quite like to see the other quilts in more detail. I would also love to know if whoever in Germany received my fabric pack made it into the show or not.

A close-up from Birmingham

This quilt was the prototype for another quilt which I have already shown you called La Serenissima which was exhibited at the Thistle Quilters exhibition earlier this summer. I love the quilt first, paint later method and you can expect to see it again in future.

British German Stash Quilt Exhibition

I had hoped to share some photographs of gravestones in Glencorse Graveyard today but despite driving the road where it is supposed to be twice we still didn't manage to locate it. I suspect that it will require investigation on foot but don't worry, I do intend to locate it one way or another. On the way home I was bemoaning not getting a good blip for today but the universe was smiling down on me as the Highland cattle in a nearby field were obligingly mulling around near the entrance to the ancient limeworks, now in ruins. A very scenic picture!

I had some excellent news earlier this week when I received a letter to tell me my wallhanging Of Immortality was accepted into the British German Stash Quilt exhibition. This is organized by both the Quilter's Guild of the British Isles and the Patchwork Gilde Deutschland. Back in May last year quilters in both the U.K. and Germany were invited to send some 5 fat quarters or so of fabric from our own collection to our respective guilds and these were then swapped so that every participant in the U.K received a package from Germany and vice versa. You can see what I mailed off here, and above is the collection of fabrics I received in return.The only thing I know about the German quilter who send my fabrics is that her last name is Bitler and she lives in Bad Muenden. She hadn't enclosed any contact information and I haven't heard who received my fabrics either.

You can see which of her fabrics I used on the form above as well as see the fabrics I added from my own stash. I can't show you the quilt yet till it is shown at its first outing during the Patchworktage exhibition in Germany in May, but I can promise that you will have great trouble recognizing any of the fabrics in the actual art! The entire exhibition will also be on show at the Quilt Festival in Birmingham during August this year.

British-German Stash Quilts

The past week has been among the more miserable of my life so far although on the other hand no-one died or was even seriously injured and on the further plus side I have also been overwhelmed by all the kind messages I have received regarding the postponement of the opening of the colour - quilts - collage exhibition. And all the walks to relieve the tension must have done me some good too!

I was particularly impressed by Popular Patchwork Magazine who have put the information about the change of date prominently on their homepage. Thank you!!

But life has to move on and so do I. It was a fellow artist who put her finger exactly on what the major problem would be. I found it almost impossible to return to my studio and actually do some work. Oh, I did get on with answering e-mails and getting to grips with updating everyone but hardly any art came out of my hands while that is usually how I sort out problems. I go and art. For now that all seems a bit pointless, and I'm also not in the right frame of mind.

Actually going and being in the studio is the only way to solve this artist block, so I'm pleased to report I've done quite a lot of tidying away while waiting for the muse to strike. I also looked around for fun stuff to do and one of the things I came across was the British-German Stash Quilt Challenge issued by the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles.

You have to be a member of either the British or the German quilting guilds to participate and the idea is to put together a package of fabrics from your stash, together approx. 1 M, and send them to the Guild. Quilters in Germany will do the same thing and then the bags will be exchanged. You can see the fabrics I put together above and at the beginning of June I will receive a similar package from an as yet unknown German quilter.

Then you make a quilt with the fabrics you've received as well as more fabrics from your own stash. The resulting quilts have to be 32" long x 16" wide and 60 of them (30 from each country) will be on show at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, 2012. My fabrics include some from Africa (the brightly patterned one) and Japan (the flowers) plus some matching fat quarters. Can't wait to see what someone in Germany is going to do with them!

And finally (this is going to be a returning addition to every blog post till the exhibition opens on the 23rd April), don't forget about the change of date. Read all the details here.