Festival time

Darling daughter and I had a wonderful couple of days at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last weekend. There was just so much to see and be inspired by, from exquisitely executed "traditional" quilts to the marvellous art textiles in the various galleries. Here are just a few of them

My favourite, and the first gallery we visited, was this beautiful, fragile emotive piece by the lovely Christine Chester. She entered it for the Vlieseline Fine Art Textile Award and was so thrilled when it was accepted (why on earth wouldn't they?). As with much of her work, it centres around the theme of memory and loss. She shows how a condition like dementia takes so much away both from the sufferer and those around them. How the person they love slowly fades away, and then even their own memories of that person become fragile and thinned by time, once they have gone. She created all the fabrics herself, then used the very traditional English Paper Piecing technique, with incredibly fine stitching, to evoke this delicate image of her father mending his fishing nets, cap pulled down, concentration absolute. It is a picture she has used in previous works about him, each one expressing her loss and his in a different way. She wanted it to hang so it could be viewed from both sides, bringing that sense of transparency and fading memories to life. We, her students, were lucky enough to watch it evolve and when I first saw it complete, I was moved to tears. It touched deeply on my own sense of loss, bringing to mind my Dad, who I haven't seen for more than 51 years, but who sits in my heart every day.

The next gallery I wanted to visit was that of India Flint. We weren't there on Saturday to hear her talk, but it was marvellous to be able to get close to her eco printed works, to see the way the different textures of wool, cotton and silk affected the prints that she makes with her "botanical alchemy". Very special, too, to see her sitting quietly there, stitching, barefoot, like an alternative Whistler's Mother; the same pose, the same gentle muted colours, but a whirled away from 1870s America. It was good to be able to thank her for her inspiration.

That satisfied my immediate priorities. Then it was a matter of wandering through the textile forest, pausing where inspiration struck, and doing our best to manage both my and Jen's frailties by stopping regularly for food and drink, or just to rest our aching and exhausting bones for a while.

Here's some more things we enjoyed

Leah Higgins' marvellous breakdown printing inspired by the cotton mills of Manchester and Salford.

Eszter Bornemisza's complex stitched and layered works that speak of maps and cities and time 

Caroline Nixon's oh so delicate Underground Overground, eco printed and then stitched

Niki Chandler's Le Ciel Electrique.“And all in a flash night turned to day. Capturing the haunting experience of camping in a pine forest during a violent electric storm.” 

Crafted in transparents and shimmering organza, a photo can't catch the sparkling luminosity of this piece.

Alice Fox's allotment year, Plot 105 : 52 weeks. 

seasonal plants, eco printed and gathered together in fragile handmade books, part of the Natural Selection gallery of plant based artworks

The vibrant colours of Liz Jones' Moving On, made with her own hand spun and hand woven merino wool

the quiet reflectiveness of Ann Beare's The Sentinels: Silent Witness, inspired by The Purton Hulks

and finally Beatrice Bueche's shining Tree in the Moonlight

Of course we saw and enjoyed more than these, but I would run out of words, and you would run out of patience if I showed you everything.

If you want more, you'll just have to go yourself - next year