Great North Quilt Show - Harrogate

Here are my quilts from the Harrogate quilt show this weekend. It's the first time I have entered this show and as I was lucky enough to pick up an award it was also my first visit to the show. It is a bit of a trek from London to Harrogate so we set off Saturday evening and stopped at a services for the night. As we are both night owls it really makes things a lot easer for us. After a gentle Sunday morning drive we arrived at the show about lunchtime. Perfect. It's a lovely area and I would very much like to spend a day or two exploring the area at some point.

Before setting off I had checked on the location. The show organisers mention that the entrance is a fair distance from the main road. They aren't kidding. On the other hand there is a Sainsburys with a petrol station at the entrance too, handy after a long trip. On route to the quilt show I noticed there had been a wool craft show on the Friday and Saturday, which I would have enjoyed, I wonder if it is an annual feature?

The first two of my quilts were in the Bed Quilt category. I really didn't think either of them would have a chance of an award here as I had heard this is a very competitive show so I was really pleased to find that Ferret Fractal Stars had picked up a Judges Merit award.

The other bed quilt I put in you probably remember, it's Holiday Starrfire. It's my interpretation of Starr Fabrics Starrfire kit. I made it as a holiday from quilts I needed to think about with the intention that it would go on my bed last winter. I had been thinking this might be it's last show so I could use it this winter, but then it was invited to a show in France. So I guess I can wait another year. If it's going to be around for another year I may see if it can go anywhere else too.

My other two entries were in the small wall hanging category. This is a great category when you need to ship your quilts to shows, you can send smaller lighter quilts :) See I do sometimes think about the shipping problems.

The portrait is "A brief moment of clarity. It is of a friend of mine who is also the writer of Cancertown, the graphic novel that inspired the quilt "Bad Rain". I had hoped this might picked up and award but I had forgotten it wasn't in a specific art quilt category, that does make a difference. It did also mean the small wall hanging category was larger than I would have expected.

Finally there is the quilt that brought me to the show. "Leather Star" won the small wall hanging category. It was great to see it there with a ribbon on. They are really nice ribbons too. In the UK they are colour coded by show not by where you place in the show. I love these shaded blue ones.  The certificate next to it is a judges choice award from Jenny Rayment, thank you Jenny.

Below are a couple of pictures of me with the trophy, I think we were having way to much fun during the presentation, but hey it was a lovely day at a really good show, what do you expect :)