FESTIVAL 2017

A Brilliant Day Out.....

Did you go to Festival? This year was my 6th year! It's better than Christmas I swear it, I've started saving for next year already. We had the usual cohort of myself, Kerry Q and Aunty Gail but also the added bonus of Carrie...a festival virgin if you can believe it! We set off (not so) bright and early at our usual time of 6:30am arriving just before 9 for breakfast and a planning session of where to go and when.

Our first stop is always Alice Caroline for the £1 a piece Liberty bins, but I have to say this year despite leap frogging of a sea of grannies to get to the front of the table, we left empty handed! A first in 6 years! There just wasn't the variety or the quality this year, most of them were very dull colors and none of the traditional 'Liberty' prints that we love so much, a very disappointing start!

That's not to say we didn't shop til we dropped!

The top photo are just some pretty bits I couldn't leave behind when I visited Purple Stitches (the second time!) the second are some with a tribal vibe that I am going be mixing in with my Travelling Quilt Bee blocks. If you missed the first installment of that adventure, you can find it here.

Next up an array of bright and bold Kona Solids sourced from the wonderfully helpful and exceptionally patient ladies at Simply Solids, teamed with a handful of fat quarters I picked up at The Cotton Patch from a variety of designers including Kaffe Fasset and Tula Pink. They are going to be used for a custom order I have had for something fit for an Indian Princess, who will be celebrating 70 years of wonderful life! I've got a couple of ideas but can't wait to get started on this one!

The second photo is a selection of fat quarters I bought simply because I loved the cool and calming mint and grey combo as they sat there calling to me in the boxes. I added the right hand side collection to them as I was walking around because I thought they complimented it well. I didn't have an original plan or use for them to start with, they just called my name! However I stock piled my good old favorites Kona Snow and Shadow and am now thinking that these will be used for my version of Summer Sampler 2017.

Of course it wouldn't be a successful festival trip if I didn't add to my collection of "One days", so above is my haul. You may have spied the brilliant new book by Stuart Hillard,it is fab there are so many gorgeous blocks in there that can be used literally in 100 quilts. He could not have been nicer to meet, we spent several minutes talking weddings, as he very recently tied the knot and just look at this little love note I got.....

There so many beautiful quilts on display, I always feel very inspired when I go to festival, I took as many picture as I could of the ones that spoke to me, enjoy!

There were a couple of real howlers as well some of which were judges choices, I know everyone has a difference in opinion of what makes something good and I really can appreciate all the work that goes in to making these quilts, but I did have several "Really??" moments. Makes me hopeful for one day when I am feeling brave enough to enter something into one of these shows!

Let me know what you thought if you went along, I always love to hear from my quilty pals!

Happy Quilting 

Kerry xx