Autumn 2004 Newsletter
London Quilters Exhibition
by Kathy Thiessen
The London Quilters Exhibition is being planned for 15th January to 12th February 2005 at the Swiss Cottage Library. This is an enormous coup for us because the London Quilters do not have to pay for the venue.
Entry forms will be available at the AGM and will be sent out with the Newsletter to those who couldn’t come. Please photocopy the entry form if you’d like to submit more than one quilt. The deadline for submission of the entry form is at the meeting on the 13th of December. Quilts need to be brought to that meeting or delivered to 14 Shepherds Hill, N6 by January 7, 2005.
The hanging dates are the 10th -14th January. The hanging will be done by Steve Roper (the Exhibitions Officer) with some assistance from knowledgeable people. One to three volunteers are needed for this; please contact me immediately if you can volunteer (e-mail and telephone details follow this article).
The Private View is booked for January 19, time to be confirmed (but it will be in the evening). The Library will pay for drinks and food, but are asking if there is a company or individual who would like to sponsor the drinks (£100 or so). Their logo or name will be included on the invitations. If you have any ideas about this, please let me know as soon as possible, and it would be great if you could do the asking!! You are quite welcome to sell your work, but the commission is 20% and the work must stay until the end of the show.
We need a volunteer with a large vehicle to pick up quilt frames from Hemel Hempstead around the 7th of January. Please let me know if you can help us with this.
The Exhibition Committee is in the process of determining how many hours we will be able to have Stewards available to answer questions, provide demonstrations and sell raffle tickets. The exhibition will be open during all library hours (listed overleaf). We will definitely need several volunteers for each Saturday (Jan. 15, 22, 29, Feb. 2, 9) and as often during the weekdays as is feasible. So, look at your schedule, mark your calendars and be ready to sign up at the meetings in November and December. If you will not be at the meetings and would like to volunteer, please contact Marlene Kleven at 020 7487 4232 (evenings) or email Kleven@btopenworld.com.
Is anyone up to doing a talk on some aspect of quilting on a Saturday during the show? Steve would welcome anything like that. Also, is anyone aware of a good video/DVD on the process of quilting that could be put into a machine to play during the exhibition?
I am asking again if anyone knows of any well-known person who could open the private view for us. Please let me know ASAP.
If any of you decide to put an advertisement for the quilt exhibition into a local newsletter (such as at work, a housing association, another quilt guild newsletter or whatever), please let me know. The Camden Arts & Tourism PR people would like to have a record of everywhere it is advertised. Thanks and please do spread the word. Because of the timing of the exhibition, we might not be able to reach as many people as planned.
Kathy Thiessen
14 Shepherds Hill, London N6 5AQ
Email :kathy@menno.org.uk
Tel : 0208 348 5124
CHAIR CHAT
The nights are drawing in now --unfortunately, so are the mornings! After the break of summer holidays and the inspiration of summer quilt shows, it feels like time to get back to some serious sewing. Speaking of quilt shows, don't forget London Quilters are having one of our own in January. It's time to finish an ongoing project so that you can put it in the show. You may even be in the lucky position of deciding which of your finished quilts you want to put in!
You may remember me writing in my first Chair Chat about the quilt top I started when I first joined London Quilters. Well, the final border is finished at last. By the AGM, it may even be attached to the rest of the top! Of course, that's not the only quilt I've been working on this year. I've just finished strip-piecing a star in red, white and blue flannel for the centre of a quilt made from old family shirts. Lucky for me, my parents have consistent taste in shirt colours. It's been hard going though; flannel is a lot more slippery and unpredictable to sew than I had imagined.
This will be my last Chair Chat. It's been great being on the committee. I've enjoyed arranging speakers and workshops as vice-chair and now that we've got the microphone, I think everyone has been able to hear me announcing things at the start of the meetings! Which brings me to the subject of the AGM. We'll need a new vice-chair, and I'd like to urge you to volunteer. You won't be thrown in at the deep end - Tricia has already booked all of the speakers for 2005, and other members of the committee are always ready to suggest people they would like to see. The vice-chair is an essential member of the committee, so if sending a few extra e-mails or making a couple of extra phone-calls a month doesn't sound like too much work, please consider volunteering!
And finally, a last word about the current Chair Challenge: the Ohio Star Block Swap. Many of our Swappers wouldn't mind another block or two, so if you saw us exchanging blocks at the last meeting and it looked like fun, it's not too late to join up!
Happy quilting,
Alys Robinson
Christmas Party
Our Christmas party this year will be held on Monday, 13th December. Please bring a sweet or savoury dish that will feed about four people as your contribution. Bottles of wine would also be appreciated! London Quilters will supply plates, cups and utensils.
For fun, we’re going to have a lucky dip. Please wrap a small Christmas-related item, such as a decoration,
either bought or made - something small to put on a mantlepiece or a tree. If you’d rather not give or receive a Christmas-related item, you can wrap up a beautiful fat quarter - we’ll put these in separate piles.
In order to raise funds for the exhibition there will be a Bring and Buy table (or tables!) at the Christmas Party. Please bring interesting items in excellent condition that someone else might want to buy OR create some gift items for sale - if you wish sell something and give a percentage to LQ, that would also be fine. Unwanted fat quarters and other quilt supplies will be greatly appreciated. All proceeds will go towards the Exhibition.
Important Information
Exhibition: 15 January -12 February 2005
Hanging: 10 - 14 January 2005
Private view: 19 January 2005
Address:Swiss Cottage Central Library, 88 Avenue Rd, London NW3
Hours: Monday, Thursday 10-7, Tues, Wed, Friday 10-6, Saturday 10-5
Quiltworks by Pauline
Burbidge by Tricia Revest
For me the highlight of the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace was the exhibition and lecture by Pauline Burbidge, featuring her work over the last 10 years. Even though I am well acquainted with her style, I’ve never seen one of her quilts 'in the flesh' as it were and I was completely unprepared for the impression they give. Both close up and from a distance they are overwhelming in both their intricate design and detail of execution. Having seen pictures of many of them in books I had no idea how large some of them are and how the quilting enhances the piecing.
The exhibition shows a clear progression in Pauline’s style. The earlier quilts are brightly coloured; Intercut Fish Harmony (1991) has all the energy of a tropical reef. However, her most recent work has moved away from colour and into quilts which are entirely black, white and grey. The surface has changed as well from her smooth, evenly quilted early work to a greater use of textures in the later pieces. Pauline’s new theme is to collect and feature natural items such as petals and feathers in her work. Feather Collection I has groups of feathers trapped under fine, almost transparent, painted silk.
In her lecture Pauline talked about her sources of inspiration and how the designs evolve. Fascinating details of how these quilts are made highlighted the attention to every detail which showed just why these quilts are so amazing.
If you missed this wonderful exhibition, it is touring to the other Knitting and Stitching Shows as well as museums and galleries in Canterbury and Glasgow (details from PB-CP@allanbank.freeserve.co.uk).
Quilts UK 2004 by Hannelore Braunsberg
This year the weather was kind and the countryside as lovely as ever. But somehow the magic of Quilts UK did not work for me. Was it because traders - 102 of them - are taking over and quilts - 314 on show this year - are getting fewer? Though some work was brilliant, innovative and inspiring, this show did not excite me the way it has done on some occasions in the past.
The competition theme was 'Terrific Triangles' with 83 entries. Triangles or squares and blocks made from triangles were popular, but I found those involving subtle uses of triangular shapes more interesting. Shongololo by Liz Jones used shape, colour and triangles in innovative ways, but did not win an award. The Tumbling Triangles by Janet Dutton are fun and the Fractured Rubies by Jan Gilchrist impressed by interesting embroidery.
Sixty-five bed quilts were on show. The lovely Suburban Landscape by Susannah Deer Connor, inspired by a mosaic at the Eden Project, demonstrated the contribution made by City & Guilds courses to design and fabric preparation. A striking gold and turquoise Celtic quilt, T & L by Lesley Davis, and another Celtic design by Margaret Williams, Bronze Age, were beautiful and well made. Tulips, superbly made and quilted by Sandie Lush deserved its 1st prize. Kitty Parkin’s interesting zigzag shaped buttonhole stitching round the edge of her quilt Through the Rainbow was unusual.
There were a few jewels among the 76 small wall hangings. The lovely Peacock by Diana Brockway surprisingly did not win an award, but the 1st prize for Tudor Rose by Liz Jones was well deserved. Among the 25 large wall hangings on show two by Eleanor Soar, High Summer and Stepping Stones, made for City & Guilds Part I, demonstrated a wide variety of fabrics and techniques. Jenny Rolfe’s Feelings of Africa greatly appealed to me as did Gillian Clarke’s interesting Glimpses of Guyana. The Champion Quilt, Health, Wealth and Happiness by Kathleen Matthews, is a superb piece of work, though not everyone’s cup of tea.
Thirteen cot quilts were entered. What else than a well deserved 1st prize can we expect for Sandie Lush’s Columbine? It is superbly hand stitched on variegated cotton sateen. Of the 14 miniature and dolls’ quilts several showed amazing skill in the small scale work. Jaquie Harvey’s Falling Leaves well deserved its 1st prize.
Was this the first time we had a category for 2-person quilts? Of the 7 in this group 4 were made by one person and quilted by another. The rest were combined efforts while In the Blink of an Aeon Diana Brockway and Judy Mendelsson showed their different styles in one piece.
Region 1 was represented by very few quilts. Alicia Merrett’s 2 small hangings, Gee’s Bend Blues and Manhattan Winter demonstrate the evolution of her style and her versatility.
News of an Olympic
Quilt....and a Quilter by Margaret Scholey-Hill
This is a story of an impressive quilter and our impressive web site that is being widely read. Early in 2002 I brought a quilt that had been given to the British Representative at the Olympics in Atlanta to the LQ Show-and-Tell. All the Reps received a quilt! The quilt was called ‘Go for the Gold, a Heart of Gold’ and was made by Cindy Richards. The quilt was also shown successfully at the last Pear Tree Quilters’ summer show, to raise money for a local charity.
I wrote to Cindy telling her what was happening to her beautiful quilt but had no reply. This August Cindy sent me a letter via the LQ Web site explaining that she had mislaid my letter during a holiday period but had found my name on our site. In the meantime she had moved and remodelled her house and had a fifth child. She had been asked to make a replica of her quilt for the Atlanta History Center, so she had made two (one for herself). If you didn’t see it, the quilt was made of tiny squares of donated fabric in a colourwash style. One can imagine her hard at work trying to re-create the quilt from a photo! Miniatures have become her chosen field, but now that her children are in school she is hoping to focus on more creative pieces.
Vacant Position
The new Committee for next year is all but in place. However, we desperately need someone to fill the post of Vice-Chair. This interesting job will put you in a real position of power, as YOU will decide on all the speakers and workshops for the London Quilters group for 2006. Also, the Vice-Chair fills in for the Chair when she cannot be at a meeting. It is hoped that the Vice Chair will take over the position of Chair after two years, although this is not set in stone! We are going to vote on the new positions at the AGM, but as this we go to Press, this will be your new Committee:
Chair: Patricia Revest
Vice-Chair: YOU!!
Treasurer: Jan Bell
Membership Secretary: Jean Nissan
Minutes Secretary: Margaret Mavay
Hospitality: Charlotte Hawkins
Newsletter: Linda Seward
Exhibition: Kathy Thiessen, Judy Roose
Many thanks to the outgoing members of the Committee, who have done such an excellent job for the London Quilters:
Alys Robinson, Chair
Janet Beck, Treasurer
Yzabel Field, Minutes Secretary
INTERNET INFORMATION
The London Quilters web site address is: http: //members.lycos.co.uk/London_Quilters/lq1.htm. It is run and maintained by Tricia Revest, whose e-mail is: p.a.revest@qmul.ac.uk
New Quilt Shop!
Carol's Patch is a home based shop located at 146 Axminster Crescent, Welling, Kent DA16 1ET on the borders of North Kent and South London. The nearest stations are Welling or Bexleyheath. You can get bus 422 from Bexleyheath Clocktower (ask for Okehampton Crescent). Ring Carol for directions if coming either by car or local transport. She will send a map on request.
Telephone: 0208 306 8114
Shop open Tues-Friday: 10am-4pm.
Saturday: 10am-1pm; other times by appointment.
email: carols.patch@ntlworld.com
online sales website:www.carolspatch.co.uk
Workshops / Mail Order list available.
Trips to Alexander Palace/Chilford / Ardingly/ Sandown/ 2 day trip to the Festival of Quilts.
A quilt group meets on the last Friday afternoon of each month.
EXHIBITIONS
River: Quiltart by Margaret Cooter and photographs by Tony Wallis, Dissenters Gallery, Ladbroke Grove, until Nov. 28th. Information: 0208 8960 1549.
Woven Blossoms Textiles from Savu in Indonesia: an exhibition of textile and weaving traditions highlighting the cultural history of the island, with a photographic display. At: Horniman Museum from May 29th to February 20th 2005.
2005 CALENDAR
January 17th: Margaret Armstrong: National Quilt Centre
February 21st: Anne Walker: Using and choosing fabrics for quilts
March 21st : Annette Morgan: A traditional start with a contemporary twist
April 17th: Barbara Chainey workshop: Unique patterns
April 18th: Barbara Chainey: Quilted texture
May 16th: Linda Seward: slides from the Pacific Northwest Quilters’ show
June 20th: Maggie Davies: History of Hawaiian appliqué
July 18th: Sewing /demonstrations evening
August: no meeting
September 19th: Helen Deighan
October 16th: Susan Briscoe workshop: Japanese circles
October 17th: Susan Briscoe: Japanese textiles
November 21st: AGM
December 12th: Christmas Party