At the South African National Quilt Festival

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

At the South African National Quilt Festival

On Friday I left the lodge near Kruger Park after the staff had sent me off with a private little choir concert. I had heard that they sing for the guests after supper during the tourist season, and that the money that is put into their little hat paid for their flights to Germany this past June. The owners of the lodge took care of the arragements during the stay, mostly on camp grounds and in youth hostels, and that way they got to see a little bit of Germany for themselves. They say they now want to save up for their next trip, and I promised I would find a place for them to give a concert while they were there. It is always possible to do that in a church, and I have easy access to that.

So I traveled on, back to Johannesburg, and was picked up and taken to Heronbridge College Campus, where the South African National Quilt Festival is taking place. How international this national festival actually is can be seen on a map next to the entry to Registration, where attendants are asked to put up a tag to indicate where they are coming from.

Heronbridge College is a private school that is currently on vacation, and the classes and exhibitions nd vendors are spread out over the campus. Accomodation is on campus as well, we eat in the dining hall, everything is very close and convenient.

The Festival takes place for a whole week and I am very impressed by the amount of work that the members of the two organizing local guilds from Johannesburg and Pretoria have put into it all. I know how much work goes into it, and the fact that the Festival lasts for an entire week simply amazes me. Several international and many South African teachers are here, the classes are on and everybody seems to be enjoying themselves.

Of course, my first concern was to check on the exhibition I brought here, the trinational challenge “Interchange: Threads connect”.

Imagine my surprise – and not on the pleasant side – when I opened my suitcase in the room and found that there were still four quilts rolled up in it. Obviously they had not been taken out because they were not included in the stack of the others but rolled up on the side, although I had made sure to tell the person taking over the suitcase at Johannesburg airport. So it took a bit of organizing to make sure that these were put up as quickly as possible. I offered to help, and so we met at 7 o’clock in the morning to take care of that. Thank you, Clare Wallace, for making that possible, I am well aware that that meant an additional amount of work for you.

These are pictures of the three different parts of the exhibition. First, Germany:

Second, Ireland:

And third, South Africa:

But it was a Quilt from Ireland that captured best the spirit of this challenge, I think:

I myself am not teaching, but have participated in one class already, am signed up for two more and took a leisurely stroll through the exhibitions and vending lanes. And I have enjoyed getting to know and talk to new people. That is the good thing about fiber aficionadas at these occasions – you can always find somebody to hang out with and relate to.

The first class I took was an “Introduction to Kantha” class with Dorothy Tucker, and it was very inpirational. The stitches are simple enough, Dorothy herself said that it is changing a lot and modern approaches offer lots of possibilities and options, she even showed a most beautiful piece in classe by one of her companions in an exhibition and historical research.