Vermont Quilt Festival - Lyn Fry
The Vermont Quilt Festival might not sound like a first choice destination for your average quilter but I was hooked when I heard that Ruth McDowell (my all-time quilting heroine) was to be having a lifetime retrospective. (I had attended one of her “Designing from Nature" workshops a few years ago). I teamed up with another of her acolytes and off we went.
Vermont really is a gorgeous state and in June the whole area seemed lush with deep greens. Montpelier (which I was corrected to pronounce Mon-pee- leer) is the capital and a tiny place of only 7500 inhabitants. The show was held in Essex Junction (bet you hadn’t heard of that either) not far from the charming town of Burlington on Lake Champlain.
The show started with a champagne and chocolate evening where you were able to get a first glimpse of the quilts and vendors. Both champagne and chocolate were freely available and my friend and I spent at the vendors in direct proportion to how much we had drunk (she was driving).
The first full day of the event included a morning where one horrible thing after another happened to me. The final straw was to show up at an 8am start for an all day workshop on free motion quilting only to find that I needed a sewing machine and couldn’t take the class. I had read in the brochure that machines would be supplied as had another woman who had travelled from New York just for the day and that workshop. I was about to give in to despair when I decided to pull myself together and go to Elaine Quehl’s “In Full Bloom” workshop. The focus here was to turn a photograph of a flower into a stunning wall quilt using fused applique. Although we were taught the first steps of transferring the image to the template this was not done individually and the class used patterns and fabric supplied by Elaine to produce stunning hangings. It was fun and a good alternative to free motion quilting.
I went to two other workshops. One on printing onto fabric was fairly disorganised although good fun. The other on quilting a landscape was chaotic because the organisers changed the start time at the last minute and few people knew, but otherwise very busy learning the dense quilting techniques which are characteristic of so many modern show quilts.
As with other American quilt shows, the teaching was of a very high standard (although many seemed to be selling some tool as well as teaching) and although attendance was high it never seemed crowded.
The sessions with Ruth McDowell were everything I had hoped for. She spoke for over an hour in the evening and showed slides about her quilting journey to a packed auditorium. She is a witty speaker and her quilts are awe-inspiring. She was then greeted with a warm and very enthusiastic standing ovation. I went to two of her gallery talks. She spoke about the 62 quilts on display and chatted with the crowds who turned up to admire her work. You can see some of Ruth's inspirational quilts on her website by using this link - www.ruthbmcdowell.com
I had a lot of fun at this show but there were some things which were not perfect. The organisation slipped at times; it was very hot outside and cold in the classrooms; the food selection was not good; the vendors with fabric had a rather limited selection and on the whole you could only by ½yd lengths or fat quarters. These were minor gripes though. I had a good time, especially at the workshops.
Lyn Fry
July 2016
Vermont really is a gorgeous state and in June the whole area seemed lush with deep greens. Montpelier (which I was corrected to pronounce Mon-pee- leer) is the capital and a tiny place of only 7500 inhabitants. The show was held in Essex Junction (bet you hadn’t heard of that either) not far from the charming town of Burlington on Lake Champlain.
The show started with a champagne and chocolate evening where you were able to get a first glimpse of the quilts and vendors. Both champagne and chocolate were freely available and my friend and I spent at the vendors in direct proportion to how much we had drunk (she was driving).
The first full day of the event included a morning where one horrible thing after another happened to me. The final straw was to show up at an 8am start for an all day workshop on free motion quilting only to find that I needed a sewing machine and couldn’t take the class. I had read in the brochure that machines would be supplied as had another woman who had travelled from New York just for the day and that workshop. I was about to give in to despair when I decided to pull myself together and go to Elaine Quehl’s “In Full Bloom” workshop. The focus here was to turn a photograph of a flower into a stunning wall quilt using fused applique. Although we were taught the first steps of transferring the image to the template this was not done individually and the class used patterns and fabric supplied by Elaine to produce stunning hangings. It was fun and a good alternative to free motion quilting.
I went to two other workshops. One on printing onto fabric was fairly disorganised although good fun. The other on quilting a landscape was chaotic because the organisers changed the start time at the last minute and few people knew, but otherwise very busy learning the dense quilting techniques which are characteristic of so many modern show quilts.
As with other American quilt shows, the teaching was of a very high standard (although many seemed to be selling some tool as well as teaching) and although attendance was high it never seemed crowded.
The sessions with Ruth McDowell were everything I had hoped for. She spoke for over an hour in the evening and showed slides about her quilting journey to a packed auditorium. She is a witty speaker and her quilts are awe-inspiring. She was then greeted with a warm and very enthusiastic standing ovation. I went to two of her gallery talks. She spoke about the 62 quilts on display and chatted with the crowds who turned up to admire her work. You can see some of Ruth's inspirational quilts on her website by using this link - www.ruthbmcdowell.com
I had a lot of fun at this show but there were some things which were not perfect. The organisation slipped at times; it was very hot outside and cold in the classrooms; the food selection was not good; the vendors with fabric had a rather limited selection and on the whole you could only by ½yd lengths or fat quarters. These were minor gripes though. I had a good time, especially at the workshops.
Lyn Fry
July 2016