Festival of Quilts and Studio21

I have just returned from 3 busy days at the Festival of Quilts with a breather before going back tomorrow.
The fibre-art, stitched textile group, Studio21 have been going strong since 1997 and we are all Stitched Textile Diploma graduates from the Windsor School of Textile Arts, over the years.  We have an exhibition called 'Continuum...A Sense of Place' on stand A58, so if you are reading this, and will be at the show, please drop in. There is an interactive area where we are encouraging visitors to apply  fabric and stitch marks by hand onto a very long piece of cloth that began at 40m in length and is still growing. By Sunday, when the exhibition finishes it will be fantastic. Here are some quick photos I have taken so far.  More 'interactive' photos are on  www.studio21textileart.co.uk
Another highlight for me was the opportunity to spend time in the Art Quilt category and there were some amazing pieces. (see below).
The winning quilt by Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga from the Netherlands was breathtaking, and other strong pieces included work by C June Barnes, Linda Barlow, Maggie Barber, Turid Tonnessen, Sheena Norquay, Janet Twinn, Hilary Beattie, Jane Ashe and Carole Belfield to name only a few.
(I hope the makers don't mind me sharing some of their work). I will be visiting the Festival again tomorrow when I will have the chance to see many more of the competition quilts and other textile galleries.

Teaching a one day class on Digital Imagery in Stitched Textiles kept me busy yesterday.  Students brought a personal theme with black and white and colour imagery that was painted and collaged together. A short basic lesson in Photoshop Elements explained how their collage photos were edited before printing on t-shirt papers. The final heat transferred cloth could then be used as a fabric for stitch in a future piece of work.
Here are a few of the collages that were done. Thanks to students whose work is shown.

I am back to Festival tomorrow on the Studio 21 stand, so come by and visit if you manage to read this in time. There are more exhibitions to visit - Jette Clover, Mary Lloyd Jones, Gillian Cooper, Jennifer Hollingdale, Texui, Pia Welsch, Yoshiko Katagiri, and many others including the Quilters Guild challenge and collections...... and the traders of course.

Thanks again for reading and I will write again soon.