Blast from the past

The brochure from an early Festival of Quilts - possibly the first one -

It has grown in size and is the highlight of the UK quilter's year, with contingents from Holland, Germany, etc visiting too. Many more lectures and workshops are on offer now.

It was possibly in 2003 that I went to FOQ for the first time, for the day - somewhat diffidently, and on the slow train! When someone told me she had six quilts in the show, I resolved to have at least one ready for it the next year. This turned out to be a little piece that was submitted (and chosen) for the "Fabric of Nature" exhibition at the Nature in Art gallery in Twigworth, Gloucestershire. It was definitely a thrill to see the entire exhibition hanging "in the centre" in 2004 ... and a milestone for me. Alas, there seems to be no photo of this quilt ... it was made of metallic organza leaves captured between layers of net, and later went into someone else's collection. My photo was lost in a computer crash, but it lives in my memory.

Postscript - thanks to Mags Ramsay for so promptly and thoughtfully sending along a photo of the "leaves" quilt -

The veins in the leaves were made as pintucks, and it took five minutes to make each leaf. I made hundreds of these leaves for  some pieces shown at Leighton House Gallery in 2000, and more for use in a series of quilts (eg "After the Rain") in which the midrib was caught between triangles so that the edges of the leaves were free and the various colours of the silks showed behind them.