{"id":209,"date":"2013-08-10T17:04:11","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T21:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/50.87.217.193\/blog\/trend-report-from-birmingham-quilt-festival"},"modified":"2015-03-07T00:07:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-07T00:07:42","slug":"trend-report-from-birmingham-quilt-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/trend-report-from-birmingham-quilt-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Trend Report from Birmingham Quilt Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I am writing to you this
\nweekend from my hotel in Birmingham England, after attending the largest
\n annual quilt festival in Europe.
\nBonnie McCaffery met me here, and we've walked the show and filmed
\nseveral videos, reviewing quilt exhibits and interviewing artists.
\nI've met many old and new friends, including many of our European
\neQuilter customers!<\/p>\n

One of our interviews was with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably, in an
\nexhibit of Kaffe's beautifully modern quilts made of his yarn-dyed
\nstripes and shot cottons.
\nAfter years of making quilts using his flower prints, these quilts have a
\n decidedly modern feel.<\/p>\n

We also interviewed AIDS activist Mary Fisher, whose powerful quilts include portraits of African children who are HIV positive.
\nHer work in Rwanda and Zambia is parallel to the projects we support through Engineers Without Borders.<\/p>\n

eQuilter sponsors the Pictorial Category here, and we have a delightful
\nvideo with the winner Stephanie Crawford, whose Chinese-themed triptych
\nwas inspired by her son's residence there.<\/p>\n

We also were lucky to find a translator to interview a 75 year old
\nRussian male quilter, whose appreciation for women is reflected in his
\nbody of work.
\nHis muse is his wife – a fashion designer.
\nThey do not, however, share their fabric stashes.
\nHa!<\/p>\n

Some of the trends I am reflecting upon, from this side of the pond:<\/p>\n

There is a steadily growing presence of male quilt artists, and their
\nwork tends to be bold and unique.
\nLarge pixilated portrait quilts were a standout at this exhibition.
\nAsian-themed quilts or quilts by Asian artists, caught our eye and our
\nimagination here.
\nGroup quilts are busting out of all the previously-held ideas of what it
\n means to be a 'group quilt'.
\nMore than ever, three-dimensional details and embellishments are
\ndefining the most unique quilts, and sometimes the whole quilt is a
\nthree-dimensional expression of fiber art.
\nText, letters, words, and fonts are all being used to convey visual
\nideas?sometimes that is the only design motif on a quilt! Layered
\nimages, discharged textures and thermofax screenprints are being
\nexpressed in more sophisticated ways.<\/p>\n

I find it so delightful to discover British, Celtic, and European themes
\n in the quilts at this show.
\nThese are themes that we seldom see in Houston (understandably so) and
\nin particular I am personally drawn to the Scottish themes.
\nNext week I will be traveling throughout Scotland, and will be
\nphotographing lots of art, color and design inspiration.
\nI am hoping for good weather, and I'll be posting my itinerary on
\nFacebook.<\/p>\n

Fans of Oliver Twist threads will be happy to know that I got tired of
\nwaiting for our distributors to expand their stock, so I went straight
\nto the source here, and we'll be carrying an expanded range of their
\ngorgeous hand-dyed threads in the near future.<\/p>\n

Tonight we are going with a large group of quilters to Stratford, to the
\n Royal Shakespeare Theater! Kaffe told us that they had designed
\ncostumes and sets for a previous production, which must have been an
\nincredible experience.
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  I am writing to you this weekend from my hotel in Birmingham England, after attending the largest annual quilt festival in Europe. Bonnie McCaffery met me here, and we've walked the show and filmed several videos, reviewing quilt exhibits … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quilts","category-travel","category-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1112,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}