Monday, September 11, 2006

Hever Castle quilt show

I thought I would give you a quick update of the quilt show. Unfortunately life has got in the way so I haven't been able to get to my computer, so this is another mobile phone report. On the bright side i can add pictures to this entry as well as the next.

Firstly if you are in the south of England and you haven't visited it I strongly suggest you do. The castle isn't huge or to my mind impressive but the grounds and ancilary buildings are amazing. The first thing that struck me was the number and size of trees there. The whole landscape was so inspiring i think it will lead to several quilts. I've been thinking about some traditional English landscapes for a while but living in London has made getting source photos tricky. It was interesting having a chance to play with some of the art and design techniques i have been learning about. The difference between portrait and landscape pictures is really interesting. I was especially interested in the change in the view through a walkway to the lake. Vertical image with the pillars framing is so strong, yet the same view horizontally with several pillars is so different.

I could ramble forever about the gardens but i suppose i should mention the quilts. The show is indeed held in a marquee in the grounds. It is a pretty large marquee, i think there were about seven traders there, 300 quilts and five demonstrators. Not bad for what I was thinking of as a little local show. There was a good turn out in the challenge class and a very high standard. I think the worst quilts in this show in general were much higher ststandard than in others i have been to. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for the judges. The non challenge quilts were not judged, the three winners were chosen by the visitors. Apparently the public were very good about writing comments for the quilts they chose. I hope they can find a way to pass this information on to the makers. Also there were only a couple of votes between the top few choices, so your vote really does matter.

When i get home i will upload some pictures. Right now I am running out of battery. I do have to say, they have great rosettes. I really like rosettes and this one is blue and purple with spiky bits, fantastic. Also everyone there was really friendly and welcoming. If you enter or visit just one show next year I think you could do a lot worse than pick this one. See you there.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I am wondering when you use the term "the worst quilts" are you referring to standard of workmanship or style of the finished quilt?

Jacky.

Ferret said...

Hi Jacky,

Yes I was thinking of workmanship. I wish I could think of a nicer way of putting it but I still can't. Perhaps the less amazing quilts. Normally there is a huge range at shows, but here everything was such a high standard. I am glad I didn't know in advance, because I would have found it quite off putting. I had expected that local shows would have had lower standar of entries but it absolutely isn't the case.

There is a downside to this, I think it makes it harder for begginers to put a quilt in when everything looks so good. Usually you can find something about one of the quilts that you think you could do better, and that is encouraging. After all that quilt is still haging in a show, so yours could be too.

Hope that explains what I was trying to say.