Quiltmuseum in York, England

One of the highlights of my trip through the north of England that I had been looking forward to for weeks was the visit to the Quiltmuseumin York.

The Quilter’s Guild of the British Isles has worked hard for many years and put together a collection of heritage and contemporary quilts which they display in magnificent rooms at St. Anthony’s Hall.

The main hall at the Museum of Quilt in York -
picture taken from website of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles

Exhibitions are changed on a regular basis so it does make a lot of sense to check opening times of the museum when you are planning a visit, as the premises are inaccessible during changeover between exhibitions.

When I was there, three rather different exhibitions were on display. The large hall contained an exhibition called „Town and Country“, which juxtaposes quilts from well-to-do origins with quilts from a more moderate background. It was very interesting to see how they differed in terms of fabric selection and quality, and intricacies of pattern. Quilts from wealthy estates used silk and other at that time expensive fabrics and demonstrated a lot of leisure time for sewing in the intricate patterns, especially the half-inch hexagons usually done with the English paper-piecing method. Quilts from workers or small farmers usually were made to keep warm, had faster to sew patterns and are characterized by a totally different choice of fabrics. Often to just as stunning an effect!

One of the smaller display rooms had „Signatures V“ by zero3 textile artists who have been exhibiting together for a number of years. And the smallest room showed a selection from the “Nineties Collection” that are in the Quilters Guild collection.

Liz Whitehouse, who works for the Guild and the museum told me that frequently people come and say, „Oh, but this is so small!“ Honestly, I don’t understand why they would say that. The premises are wonderful with their high ceiling, documentation is extensive and shows the careful research that has gone into them, and when you sit down and count the number of pieces on display you’ll see that they are not so few as the first look into the hall might suggest. Of course, if you come with the expectation that you are coming to a little Festival of Quilts with several hundred quilts, that must leave you disappointed. But of course that is not what this museum is for.

During the AGM in Nottingham the reports on the museum had been serious. Due to the recession visitor numbers last year were fewer than needed for the upkeep of the museum, and the board has decided to start a benefactor program specifically for the museum. Information on that can be found here. Perhaps there are enough people out there who will join together?

Another way of helping the museum is to become a friend or a full member of the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles as membership fees are one of the fundamentals for this charity organization to continue with the work they are doinng, including the museum. With the membership you receive the quarterly newsletter “The Quilter”, that keeps you informed about ongoings of the Guild. You also get a reduced entry fee to the museum, and a 10% discount in the museum shop, and that includes online shopping.

And every small donation is welcome as well. I donated part of my earning from teaching for the Guild at the AGM, because I do hope that the museum will be kept open for a long time to come!

Nottingham, second day

On Saturday, the entire morning was dedicated to the Quilter’s Guild of the British Isles’ AGM (Annual General Meeting), during which I learned a lot about the way meetings are handled in Britain. It did come as a revelation that meetings such as these can be fun to attend (whereas in Germany they usually aren’t, and that goes for every kind of organizational meeting, definitely not restricted to the patchwork guild!). When listening to Tina McEwen, the current president of the Guild, as she talked to the members, I understood that so many more members were actually present at the meeting than usually show up on these occasions in Germany.

The afternoon was devoted to a little bit of shopping at the vendors’ stalls.After that I went into the lecture hall to listen to Gillian Clarke, a former historian, who gave a talk on how she uses illuminations of medieval books, or from other medieval sources such as choir stands decorations in churches, as the basis for her quilt designs. She has done a quilt called the “Labors of the month”,

sorry - out of focus: Gillian Clarke, Labors of the month, detail

and, upon the comment of a friend “you know, Gillian, these are all men!”, she went on to do “A Woman’s work” as a parallel.

Gillian Clarke, A Woman's Work, detail

Her wonderful wholecloth quilt in white and red (white front, red back, and all the quilting done in red) had a fateful accident while in an exhibition, where water leaked onto it from the rood – and it was the quilting thread that bled onto the quilt. 

Given my most recent experiences with bleeding red, I talked to her about what she had done about it, sharing the precious advice I had received from readers. But she said she hadn’t done anything at all about it, simply accepted it as part of the fate of the quilt. “It always makes for a good story, you know.”

In the evening, the Gala dinner took place at the East Midlands Convention Center. 

Only while I had been packing my suitcases had I discovered that the theme for the evening called for “Lashings of lace”. Not being a very lacey person, I had encountered a short moment of slight panic. I had never before been to a British theme party in my entire life, but read about them and their potential intensity just recently, and I was slightly scared about not really doing the right thing. In any case, I do not own a single piece of clothing that includes a piece of lace and did not want to buy any, but I did remember that I had once bought a piece of cardboard with handmade Brussels Lace (in a very simple style) on a fleemarket. I managed to find it, put it in my suitcase and figured I would find a way to set it to use when the occasion arrived.

I did, too: I wore it around my shoulders in a sort of sash-style for the gala dinner. I had also acquired another piece of narrow lace in a small “surprise bag”bought at the fundraising stall for QGBI’s region 10, which I wore wrapped around my head as a kind of lace bandana. Here I am in this extremely flattering outfit, together with Laura Wasilowski and my raffle prize, a rather pink bucket filled with rather pink quilter’s goodies that I won completely unexpectedly:

Laura Wasilowsky and I after the raffle drawing.

After the meal was over, we were treated to Laura Wasilowsky’s and Frieda Anderson’s talk on their “Chicago School of Fusing”. Laura and I had been seated next to each other during dinner and had tried to figure out where we might have met before, except for our little exchange on Friday on the occasion that our workshop rooms had been exchanged. We both had the feeling that we had, but we could not find out when that might have been. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed their talk about their technique and processes, including Laura’s songs underlining her story of Eve and the creation of fusing, as did the rest of the hall. If you ever get a chance to hear the two of them perform, don’t miss it. It made me want to give fusing a real try...

Nottingham, first day

With my visit to Nottingham I was rather lucky with QGBI’s planning: all my teaching was done on one – the first! – day, after which I was finished and could simply enjoy the atmosphere at the meeting, meet a lot of people, and enrich my scanty knowledge of British culture by immersion.

We had breakfast in the university’s Atrium, which, of course, reminded me about being a student at the university myself many many years ago.

Returning your food trays, and the system is breaking down...

After the grand opening of the weekend on Friday morning, at which we were greeted by Morris dancers (I am not quite sure about the spelling here...) and by Robin Hood and his lovely Lady Mariam in person

I went to find my workshop room, which had been changed last minute in the morning. Fifteen people were enrolled in the workshop, everybody appeared on time, and we had a heavy workload ahead of us. The workshop I taught was an abbreviated version of my “IQ – from inspiration to quilt”, which I had originally conceived of as a two-day workshop. So this one-day set-up consituted quite an experiment – the class is a full class, and I did not know beforehand whether the cuts had been made at the right points, and how this would really work.

I think it did.

Even the larger room was a tight fit with fifteen students,
but we managed fine.

Assuming that every student knew how to do free-hand cutting, I showed them my quilts as they appear in my eternal calendar, explaining how the different techniques yielded vastly results, even when using the same inspirational picture. After that we dove into the process of making the individually crafted paper templates that I frequently work with, based on a small design that was supposed to show the workshop participants the usefulness and applicability of my little technical trick, the half-closed seam. And in the afternoon they started to work on their own inspirational pictures, although there was only enough time for a beginning approach. Of course, it would have been nice to give the students enough working time so they could see the effects - and pitfalls! – of the technique when applied to their own intended design. But they were able to get through the entire process of template making once, I did point out to them the possible difficulties when leaving out one of the vital components in the process, such as forgetting to put a grid on the back of the templates before cutting them up, or the necessity to add further sewing lines at some points. So I do hope that they went home with a sound basic knowledge of what it is they can do when using the kind of paper templates I work with, and that they will put it to use in their own work.

Despite the fact that I was very tired in the evening I went to listen to Anja Townrow’s talk on her development as a quilter. Good that I did, it was such a show! I don’t think any quilter in Germany would have the guts to stand up in front of so many people and talk so humorously and unconceitedly about herself. 

Anja Townrow, detail of one of her fabulous foundation pieded
and appliqued quilts

Anja uses freezer paper for her many curves and perfect points and produces stunning results in terms of technical perfection and sewing, with appliqué added on top for additional effects.

Freezer paper is not available in supermarkets in Germany, so I had never thought about applying it to my technique of template making. You can get it in quilt shops, though, at the corresponding prices, but I don’t want to spend a fortune on freezer paper. Though it might be worth considering whether an adaptation of my technique is practicable or desirable, and I will certainly do a little bit more thinking about that, at the moment I think using freezer paper is just an additional step in the process. One would have to trace the worksheet onto the freezer paper, and that would slow me down. I do make sure I take a picture of the paper before I cut it up into templates, I have added enough information for orientation on the individual pieces to get them back into place, and as the freezer must be removed before joining the pieces, which need to be pinned nevertheless, I don’t actually see an advantage in using freezer paper for the kind of designs I work with.

I do see that it has a distinct advantage when using it for foundation piecing, though!

First impressions from my trip to Nottingham

Changing planes in Amsterdam - probably the only airport in the world
where you can buy tulip bulbs, in bulk! Lovely.

Descent into Manchester

Play of Lines on water...

Reflections on the roof of the Atrium, U of N Jubilee campus

House decorations

New possibilities for quilt design?

Multilayered colours on rust

Design opportunities in bus route overview

Having a cup of tea in the sunshine... (together with Elke Heege)

Color Improvisations in Neumünster

I have packed my bag and am planning to hop onto the train early tomorrow morning to attend the opening of  the double show of Color Improvisations and fifteen quilts by Nancy Crow in Neumünster, north of Hamburg.

There has been a bit of a discussion on the Contemporary Group of QGBI's yahoo list about the recent showings of this exhibition in London (badly hung) and Dublin (wonderfully hung) and how the advertisement with a provenance of the name "Nancy Crow" had influenced visitors' expectations.
Margaret Cooter commented on this on her blog with some interesting thoughts, weighing carefully between the arguments for either side.
It is an interesting topic. I don't know how the advertisement for the two shows in England and Ireland was constructed. But when I received my invitation for the opening at the Tuch + Technik Museum, I of course immediately noticed that the quilt on the front of the flyer was one of the three quilts by Bonnie Bucknam in the show, while the prominently displayed name was that of Nancy Crow.

Now I happen to know some things about how the show came about, and how difficult it was to find appropriate places to show it - 50 large quilts need some space, after all! - because Nancy Crow's original intention was to show it only in art museums. As a matter of fact, it was my suggestion to Ginie Curtze to try at Tuch + Technik that secured this last stop in Europe before the show is supposed to go overseas.
I think it is quite justifiable to combine these two shows, especially since they are closely connected through the person of Nancy Crow - she is the initiator and curator of Color Improvisations, which shows quilts by her students from several countries, and of course she is a famous quilter herself. If museums and organizers of shows demand some additional attraction that will catch people's attention after Color Improvisations has been traveling for more than two years, that is quite understandable and acceptable. It's just a case of negligent editing that the flyer combines Bonnie's quilt with Nancy's name.
Does the name of the artist affect a viewer's perception of a piece of art? Of course it does - but that does not necessarily mean that this will be the same in every viewer. I openly admit that I was not terribly impressed with Mona Lisa when I saw the painting in the Louvre - no matter who painted it, and how many people think differently. On the other hand, I was really impressed with several of the works I saw in the Global Paper exhibition in Deggendorf, that I went to without knowing more about it than that it was supposed to be an interesting exhibit, and although I really only knew three of the names of artists on display (and one of the three turned out to be a doppelgänger). One of my most favorite quilts was made by an anonymous slave. All it requires is to keep an open mind. Great names may promise great stuff,
but no-names can certainly create great stuff as well.
In any case, I am looking forward to my trip. Let's just hope German Railways can cope with the fact that it is snowing...

Activities after France

So what have I been doing since I returned from France?

I went through the final preparations for and taught the workshop “Parquet and Patchwork” that I have posted about here.

I have been practising the piano a lot more than during the last year, which I hope my teacher will notice when I go to have my lesson next week... I made tons of quince jam and apple sauce as the garden season is coming to an end and last harvest activities need to take place.

I finally had an idea for a tight spot I had got myself into in May. When in Einbeck I saw that the German Patchwork Guild was having a little challenge for members to make a quilt 70 x70 cm, using pieces of two given fabrics that the president had brought with her from a trip to Malaysia. The quilts are to be shown for the first time at the AGM of the British Quilters’ Guild in Nottingham in April, and since I am also going to be there, teaching, I had figured I better get me one of those little packages. However, I had absolutely not counted on the kind of quilter’s block I would get upon looking at the fabrics. These are the two fabrics that were inside the package.

The package was called “checkered fish”, and somehow I got hooked on that combination – how do I do a checkered fish, do I really want to do that... But my idea came when I was thinking about the fact that I myself still had not done more in the parquet-style than sew the few samples for the workshop. Forget the checkered fish, just do a little parquet pattern using the fabrics.

This is the pattern I will use to make the quilt.

So I made plastic templates. Usually I cover up the numbers on the templates with scotch tape to prevent the mark rubbing off.

And this is the state of the project at this minute: pieces are cut, waiting to be sewn together, and then I will figure out how to do the border, although I do have an idea for that already.

These are the leftovers of the two required fabrics – I think I did use enough of them to meet the challenge requirements indeed.

So have I been doing a bit of sewing, too, or is the new machine just sitting there idly?

In spring I had seen on Bonnie Bucknam’s blog that she has started a continuation of her “100 quilts for an orphanage in Guatemala” project which she calls “Quilts for MayanFamilies” .

I had promised her I would make at least one top, but I had announced that I would not get started on it until after the exhibition in France.

Which I did during the parquet workshop – I started cutting the pieces for a quilt that would meet the size requirements, also a parquet pattern. In fact, it’s the first practice pattern that I used to get participants started, getting them acquainted with the half sewn seams.

This is how far I had got with the sewing before I had to start cutting some more pieces:

Which I have done, even sewn them together partly already, but I don’t have a picture of that stage yet.

And after these, I will return to Play of Lines and Shapes, I am sure.

Birmingham, here I come...

It’s been nine years since my first and so far last visit to Birmingham – in March, as participant in a European exchange program for university lecturers. By then I had of course heard about the Festival of Quilts, but it was absolutely impossible to combine the two occasions. While I was there, my husband fell seriously ill and I had to return home earlier than planned, so I did not even get to see much besides the university campus. Since then I have been thinking that I want to go and visit the festival at some point.

Some of my quilts have already been there. Two years ago I participated in the competition and had two quilts in the shows. Last year, SAQA’s „Beyond Comfort“ opened in Birmingham, which includes two of my quilts. So I finally decided this would be the year when I would go there myself.

Since November I had been checking the homepage regularly, and was pleased to receive a mail pre-announcing early booking for the festival for members of QGBI “and associated European guilds” – that’s me! After all, I am a member of the German Patchwork Guild, that should qualify. So I downloaded the program, picked out a few classes I would like to participate in, and waited almost patiently for March 1st.

I assumed I might not get into all the classes, but I was lucky. Because I opted to call them and not attempt any online registration processes, it all went smoothly. I managed to reach somebody on my first try, talked to a very nice person on the other end of the line, gave her all the class numbers I had picked out, and she would let me know within two days in case they were not available any longer.

But I received all my tickets a week later. Meanwhile I have even corrected the wrong number of membership I had given them when I quoted my number by heart – no problem, it does not affect my registration.

Everything else I left to our fabulous travel agent, a former school friend of my husband. she is also called Uta, which always makes for nice openings of telephone conversations – “Hi Uta, this is Uta...” She, of course, got me a better deal for a flight than I would have managed to get if I had fidgeted with booking over the internet, and she also managed to get me a better hotel rate than the one I would have got if I had registered as a visitor of the Festival of Quilts.

So I’ll be going to be present at the Festival for the first time in August this year – my plane tickets arrived on Thursday, and I am excited!

A visit to England

While we were on family vacation last summer I received a pleasant surprise: an e-mail by Denise Davies, secretary of QGBI, the British Quilters’ Guild. She invited me to come and teach at their April 2013 annual meeting in Nottingham.

Who would say no to that! Especially with that much planning time ahead - my husband can block a certain part of the month from anything outrageously time-consuming on his side, making it possible for me to go away despite the fact that a then almost eight-year-old might need special daily attention.

Denise mentioned that the British Guild would in time advertise the fact that I will be in the country, so perhaps another teaching possibility could be arranged for before or after that particular weekend, making it worthwhile to travel that far. We are still negotiating exactly which workshops I will be offering as the QGBI’s workshop format at their convention does not really coincide with my usual workshop schedule. Basically I have designed my workshops as two-day-events, whereas the QGBI-meeting is characterized by half-day or at most one-day workshops. But it should definitely be possible to come up with something for a shorter occasion.

I’m very excited – although I majored in English and even got a Ph.D. in English Linguistics, I haven’t really been to England itself that much. A couple of short visits probably add up to just about five weeks of my life that I’ve spent in England. Instead, I lived in the United States on several different occasions (adding up to a total of more than four years), and traveled through New Zealand on my bike and on foot (adding up to not quite three months). So England somehow acquired a status of white spot on my personal map, which can definitely be modified. For that I am already planning a trip to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham next August, but Nottingham is a place I’ve never been to before.