FOQ TWELVE: winners

A comprehensive list, pictures and description appears on Nicola Foreman's blog. A miniature quilt winning best of show makes the point that all categories are eligible and that it is as hard or harder to make a tiny quilt with all the elements of a large one. However the whole point of these is how she/he she do that and the technical ability involved; I don't think a miniature can ever have the graphic impact and resonance of a full size human scale piece which can be viewed from a distance or in close up. Of course I write from the perspective of a traditional quilter who likes body sized quilts!

Judith Lynch: Sticks and stones 1
This is the Modern Quilts winner and deploys many familiar elements, negative space, narrow
inserts of lines and a cross, neutral background, use of white, minimal colour and
dense walking foot quilting. It's a very nice quilt but I would have liked to see more of the i
individuality that was the hallmark of the first modern quilts.

Detail

Annelize Littlefair: The trouble with magenta, hot or cold
Traditional quilt winner., Again, technique seems to be the main factor in this choice from last year's best of show winner, a longarmer. Again in something relatively small I hould have liked to see more variety of elements and less conventional quilting designs. Again though, a very nice quilt and there is nothing "wrong" about it but not enough for me!

Birgit Schuller: The Sprinter
Winner of The Quilters' Guild Challenge and a super quilt with many levels of complexity with the dynamic visual impact
from a distance, the capture of runners in full flight, the foreground one echoed by a shadowy front runner, restrained and rather unexpected use of green, subtly textured choice of background and wonderful quilting composition which carries the theme forward with start to finishing positions. I love the varying scales and repetitions of depicted figures all subservient to that single
knockout image.

Detail

Mary Palmer and Anne Kiely: Tidings
Winner of the two person section. I love this quilt because of the balnced sections, use of colour
and beautiful delicate motifs. This quilt is an artistic collaboration while many quilts in the
two person section are large professionally long armed quilts. I imagine this makes it very hard to
 judge.

Philippa Naylor: Measure for measure
Miniature winner and Best of Show. Philippa's work on any scale is exquisite and finely
detailed as this tiny beautifully edged quilt demonstrates to perfection.

Friday Frolics: The four seasons
Group quilts create the same judging problems as two person quilts, ranging groups of expert artistic works alongside
regular group quilts by a group with a range of abilities perhaps made to raise money for charity or for local display.
This quilt neatly straddles the two with its four separate sections (a construction solution often resorted to by the
 artistic collaborators), use of a cohesive theme and background shading but combined with traditional Dresden Plate
blocks and fabrics from various stashes.

FOQ ELEVEN: Victoria Findlay Wolfe

A unique feature of FOQ is the way invited displays by groups or individuals are shown in white walled  professionally lit galleries, setting off the pieces to full advantage. One of the galleries (no pictures allowed) was curated by Nancy Crow and I am rginding my teeth because I didn't see it in full so missed a chance to see a quilt by Nancy "in real life"., having only ever seen her work in books.
However I just love and admire Victoria Findlay Wolfe s quilts; she is an absolute virtuoso but what comes through in her work is the sheer joy of making and playing with possibilities. She seems to be a very nice sharing person as well.

Sewing Day

It was our bi-monthly sewing day today; I spent the time sewing a hanging sleeve onto my Skopolus quilt ready for the Hever show which will be it's one and only hanging. Others were more creative.

Detail of Maggie's wool quilt

Joy's appliqued hexagons

Detail of the Iris block

Jenny was sandwiching a 9 FQ pattern.

Margaret's cobblestones

Maggie's wool quilt; she only just bought the fabrics at FOQ.

FOQ TEN: Contemporary Quilts

This the last post on quilt categories as I missed out on pictorial quilts and art quilts because of lack of time.

Tracy Aplin: Ellen's Quilt
Tracy is another dear friend and Usual Suspects member and I have watched this quilt in the making.
Tracy's quilts are always recognizable as hers, highly individual and imaginative, and this one is
packed with personal references so her daughter will feel wrapped in love as she starts college.

Louise Jessup: It's Lavender, Dilly!
Louise is an Oast member, again with a very different
approach to quilts especially in regard to construction
and applying separately made elements.

Detail

Anna Maria Turchi: Fly Away
I have a penchant for quilts such as this where a unified
composition is made up of different  sections and elements.

Detail

Carole Wood: Chrysler Alternatives
This is an archetypal contemporary quilt with its reworking of traditional New York
Beauty blocks, asymmetric border and bright colours (I think of the as American colours).

Isobel Loftus: Cabin the woods
This is a favourite: I love the woven recycled fabric, traditional but enlarged block and balanced improvisational placement.

Kate Dowty: Crazy Fields
I heard Kate speak at the Torquay AGM earlier this
year and was impressed by the quality of her work and
her throughgoing approach to design and
inspirations from nature.

Wonderful quilting

FOQ NINE: Miniature Quilts

Miniature quilts or anything very small are not my thing but these were hung at the end of one of the main sections and I couldn't but admire the technical skill and artistry that had gone into the making

 of these pieces.

Sylvie Plested: Angry Bird's Bath
Sylvie is an Oast member and based her piece on a
calendar picture by American artist, Charley
Harper called Brrrrdbath. What a wonderful choice of
subject!

.

Helen Howes:: Interpolated Roses
In silk free cut and quilted. The start of  a new
series for Helen who has made many
quilts based on trees.

Helen Butcher: Mini modern sampler
I just loved this but thought it would be better writ large only to discover Helen had already
done that as a 4 ft sized piece for a beginners' course and the full size pattern
 is available from Little Patch Pockets.
Oakshott  fine cottons and Liberty lawns

Amy Pabst: Tight pineapple
"Cotton, silk and linen blend fabrics, foundation pieced and machine quilted.
inspired by late 1800s quilt and has 2772 pieces. Crumbs!
Would look wonderful in any size.

FOQ EIGHT: Modern Quilts 02

I hope I've ascribed these aright. Realising I hadn't charged up my camera the night before I stopped photographing aide memoire labels and jotted down numbers.

Abigail Sheridan de Graff: Wasabi on the side
Kona Solids quilted in straight lines. Made as part of the Sewcial Bee Sampler Sew-Along.
Love the colour choices and the choice of blocks.

Margaret Ager: Margaret's modern hexies
Sew Hexie pattern by Kenzie Mac and Co. She solved the problem of how to quilt all
that negative space on a domestic machine very well I thought.

Detail

Chris Mason: Discombobulated
Improvisational  piecing quilted on a domestic machine.
I'm not sure about the overall balance of this and if emulating I should want to
vary the size of the blocks.

Love her choice of fabrics.

FOQ SEVEN: Modern Quilts 01

Christina Arcenegui Bono : Getting On
A Moda building blocks pattern. I wonder what it would look like the other way up.

Dorothy Hill: La Passacaglia Goes Large
My visitor's choice and this one brings out the copyist in me. She made just one round of
Willyne Hammerstein's pattern enlarging the templates to cover a double bed.
Uses modern cottons, Liberties and linen and perle cotton big stitch quilting and
machine quilting,

Juliet Nelmes: Elm Creek Sampler by Jennifer Chiaverini
This is a very nice quilt which stuck out like a sore thumb is this category.
The maker didn't realise that here the word "modern" is limited to a specific type of quilt.
Also it has been quilted by Midsomer Quilting; the rules are insistent that long armed quilts
should go in the two person category. No doubt the judges gently pointed all this out and
she will know next time.

Detail of Wild Colours
I was fascinated by the crazy layering

Frieda Oxenham: Ramsay Monument Quilt
Colours and pattern very "modern", raw edges and embellishment less so. She used Ella Blue's
 Linen Cupboard line. I tried in vain to buy this after seeing pictured swatches in a magazine.

Eva Le Blanc: Lone Star
EPP method. The star is beautifully set off by the vbrant background.

Lisbet Borgreen: White January
I remember the maker's quilt  from last year which I think may also have come
second in the modern category as did this one.
Super restrained exploitation of fabric set off by close quilting. Another favourite.

Teresinha Roberts: Wild Colours
Made entirely by hand using naturally dyed fabric. The use of hand dyes makes me
think contemporary section as modern quilts use manufacturers' solids in my
experience.

FOQ 2017 SIX: Two Person Quilts 02

Natalie Taylor and Frances Meredith (longarmer): Houston Fabric Highlight
Tumblers using fabric collection bought at Houston 2015. Tumbler seam matching proved tricky.

Heather Hasell and Mary Jane Hutchinson (longarmer):Chic Modern Neutrals
This colourway is very popular just now (this is from a Moda layer cake) and fits in with modern
decorating trends.
I like it.

Natalie Taylor and Frances Meredith (longarmer): Houston Fabric Highlight
Tumblers  made with a collection of fabrics from Houston 2015. Seam matching
proved tricky.

Lisa Taylor and Trudi Wood (longarmer): Space Dust
Tula Ping FP pattern using 44 individual pieces. The maker matched the original effect
as closely as possible using 22 Cotton and Steel basics and V&Co's Simply Color Metro Dot.
Made to celebrate 10 years of a happy marriage.

Anne Marshall and Trudi Wood (longarmer): Club Tropicana
Her first magazine quilt using traditional HST's and symbol of welcome to very modern
graphic effect. I note the maker is the same as for Pink Roads in an earlier post.

Pauline Smith and Marlene Chaffey (longarmer): Estuary View
Uses Janet Clare's Hearty Good Wishes fabric to represent the view of the River Exe
from her bedroom window. The theme is echoed by the custom quilting.

Close up of Janet Clare fabric. I like her distinctive designs but would find them hard to
 combine with others. This quilt ses them to full effect.