Bristol Quilters

I've finally taken the plunge and joined a quilt group, Bristol Quilters. I've wanted to join a group for some time, but wanted to find one that had decent speakers and events, which meant joining a larger group. There aren't that many groups near me, even small ones, and I knew I would have to travel quite a distance. In the end I decided upon Bristol Quilters, although it means travelling driving about fifty minutes, which in the dark and the pouring rain, as it was last night, isn't a lot of fun. But I'll give it a go and see how I feel at the end of the year.

Last night's speaker was Judy Fairless, who told us about a holiday a few years ago following the Silk Route. This had first been discovered by Marco Polo in the fifteenth century, to bring silks back from China to Europe overland. After showing us some wonderful photographs she went on to talk about how her quilting had been inspired by the trip. I managed to get some photographs of her work at the end, though the lighting was poor and there was a large crowd of people all eager to see the pieces close up.

These hats were inspired by the yurts Judy saw on her journey as well as some of the embroidery she saw.

This collage was made from photographs that she printed onto fabric.

This was based on tile patterns from buildings in western China. She made positive and negative print blocks using foam then painted the blocks with bleach and stamped them onto blue fabric. Aren't they wonderful?