Festival of Quilts NEC Birmingham August 2013 - Part One

I have just returned from a fabulous visit to the Festival of Quilts. Due to business, I was not able to be certain I would be able to go till last minute. I travelled down on Friday evening and stayed at The Village Hotel in Solihull.

Really clean & comfortable with a superb leisure centre too.

After a lovely breakfast, I set off to the NEC. It only took around 12 minutes, and was really easy to get there.

I parked up and headed off down to the exhibition halls, then spotted Susan Briscoe, so walked down with her.

In the queue I met some lovely friendly quilters from Lincolnshire too. 

Once inside I decided to work from right to left - well that was the theory, but I think I must have walked several miles over the two days going back and forwards and round and round!

I found Ferret next on the Innova stand with Meret. Ferret had her longarm machine set up and let me have a go. WOW I think I can now see the attraction. 

Then Bonnie McCaffery came along with her video camera and asked Ferret for an interview.

Here are some pics of Ferrets Wolf Quilt

 I spend the next few hours wondering around some of the stalls. To be honest there was so much to see and buy I found it rather difficult. 

I ended up on 'Teachers Row' and it was really funny - I knew most of them as they had already taught here at The Royal Bridlington or I have already got them booked to teach. So that took a good few hours to visit and chat with each of these superb ladies.

After a sit down and a coffee I was ready for a bit more and decided to have a look at some of the quilts. Here are just a few which caught my eye.

The winner of the Minature Quilts was the amazing little pink one

I recognised this brightly coloured one by Alison Bramley. She taught a retreat with us here a couple of years ago.  She uses silks for her reverse applique techniques to create some wonderful designs.

I love these fabric flowers - I think they were by Gillian Travis