Heart of Kent Hospice Quilt Show

 It's funny where life takes you. I was in Canterbury teaching recently when one of the students started talking  about her local quilt show. I mentioned that there weren't any near me and I would love to have more chances to display my work. Well that was all it took and three of my pieces were invited to the show. Of course being a rather late decision the logistics were tricky but two of the organisers came up to Patchwork Corner in Hemel Hempstead to pick my work up. That's quite a journey.

The show is held at Aylesford Priory, which wasn't easy to find with the sat nav but is a lovely place when you do get there. I guess having a few days of good weather, and a good size car park really helps bring in the visitors.

The show is in a large barn with the most amazing roof, The height means they can hang a lot more quilts that you might expect. The ones you can see bunched up on the line in the roof are all charity quilts.

 The first of my quilts that was displayed if Bad Rain. I was particularly pleased with this one being displayed here as the Kent is where I met the author, and Whatever Comics in Canterbury is one of the shops where I can be sure people can get a copy of the book it is from, Cancertown. Hopefully I will soon have time to do another quilt fron one of Cy's books. If only there were more hours in the day.

The next piece they displayed for me. is my Victorian Steampunk outfit. This is a particularly difficult items to display. The Sandown quilt show managed to fit it in but trying to find a place for the train where it won't get trodden on it very hard. This plinth is fantastic. It brings the train up to a better height for people to see and it's large enough to be stable and unlikely to trip anyone up. I somehow don't think I'm going to get this lucky very often.

Next to the dress was there was a  shelf wide enough to take a quilt stand, another very lucky break. It brings the Dragon up to the right height. When I designed the quilt I intended it to be hung so the dragon's eyes are at the viewers eye level. It also kept the Dragon off the floor as it is a bit long for their quilt stands.

I've got to say I was really impressed with how the organizers of this show treated my work. They took exceptional care of them and thought carefully about how to display everything. It was interesting to hear them talk about planning the show, thinking about making sure the exhibits were safe and were hung to their best advantage right down to making sure quilts next to each other were not going to clash colourwise.

The plan is that next year I will see if I can get a couple more of my quilts displayed here. I am also hoping I might be able to do some classes too. If you are free do try and get to this show, it's a lovely day out and all proceeds go to a very good cause. Last I heard they were expecting to donate over 4000 pounds to the hospice from this years show.