The 3rd Genevieve Awards: The Festival of Quilts 2023
Hello everybody!
The Festival of Quilts 2023 has been and gone and it has been one hell of an event! I spent two whole days there, I exhibited myself for the first time this year, I attended two workshops and a talk and I took a grand total of 1619 photos, which I have had to dump onto my laptop because my SD card and my phone storage have finally told me enough is enough with my photo habits and I near to clear some space.
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| Me on the train on the way to the second day of the FOQ. |
So on to this year's Genevieve Awards! The Genevieve Awards are awards I give to the quilts on display at the Festival of Quilts. The only prize for them is the knowledge that I like your quilt. I make up the categories, I decide which quilts go in to the categories, I decide who wins. These are now the third Awards (you can also read the ones for 2022 and 2019) and the categories change depending on what quilts are at the show. For the first year ever, I have decided that some quilts at the show are not actually eligible for a Genevieve Award. These are: My quilt (because I am way too biased) and the quilts in the 20 year retrospective that were displayed in previous Genevieve Award years (because they already had their chance). The FOQ also brought in a new category this year called 'The Joy of Sharing' which was for people wanting to display their quilts but not be judged. In accordance with the wish of these quilters to not be judged I will be doing a special section that is Genevieve's Highlights of this category, without picking a winner. Other than that, all quilts on display, including individual artist exhibitions, graduate showcases, historical collections and guild challenge quilts could potentially receive a Genevieve Award! Links to artists' Instagrams or websites will be given where I can find them. If they gave their IG handle or website in the Festival programme, that link is preferred.
And an added bonus this year! Very often a quilt title or the quilt itself will get a song stuck in my head. If it's stuck in my head it needs to be stuck in your head too, so you are getting a link to YouTube for it. Think of it as the intro music for the quilt if these were being presented on a stage. No criticism for musical taste will be accepted, except for the one instance of Blippi, for which you can blame my kids. Once again, these songs come from my head, and have nothing to do with the intentions of the original quilters, no offense is intended and links can be removed if any is unintentionally given. Also, if a quilt doesn't have a song, again, no offense is intended. Feel free to give me suggestions!
So here are the Awards!
Quilts featuring circles
SONG LINK FOR THE CATEGORY: Circles, by Vanessa Knight
Circles were everywhere this year at the Festival. It's like they were the unofficial theme. Once I spotted it I literally couldn't see anything else. The were appliquéd circles, pieced circles, quilted circles, Double Wedding Ring quilts, Orange Peel quilt, Dresden Plates, as well as the whole European Quilt Association's exhibition of 'Flower Power' circular mini quilts. This category could easily have over 100 nominations.
Entry 1 - Fractured Space, by Kathy White
SONG LINK: Walking on Broken Glass, by Annie Lennox
This quilt first caught my attention by being placed next to mine at the show. There is a lot of interesting detail in it, the various circles are all created differently - some are appliquéd, some are pieced, some are machine embroidered with fancy stitches. The quilter mentions in her statement that the idea came from a cracked mirror. It is hand quilted, which I am always a fan of. Here is one of the circles in more detail.
Entry 2 - Sixteen Pots And Jugs of Flowers 11, by Sheena J Norquay
Flowers set in circles, with large quilted circles between the blocks and then tons of tiny quilted circles for the background of the blocks. Also, I love a rainbow (there's a whole category of them later on!) so the ombré rainbow border instantly caught my eye. Clearly a lot of work (and thread) went into this quilt. Here's a close-up of one of the flower pots.
Entry 3 - Family Ties, by Colleen Butler (private IG account)
This is a double-sided quilt in the sustainable category. The title is a pun on the set phrase and the fact it is literally made out of ties from family members (and denim). We have a lovely circular motif in the the form of a Dresden Plate made out of ties on one side (a clever use of the material, as the shape of ties will tend towards that shape when placed in a circle). And then a series of appliquéd circles dotted around on both sides. This is exactly the sort of quilt I was expecting to see in the sustainable category, and I think this one is very nicely made. Here are some close-ups:
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I like that the quilter included the labels from the clothes! |
A Sustainable Quilt about sustainability - really going all out on the theme. And doing it with the unofficial theme of circles. The fabric used is an old tablecloth, and old curtain, and scraps from previous projects. The quilter has crafted appliqué circles of all the UN's stated Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030.
This quilt interprets the concept of a colour wheel as a literal circle, with a rainbow of circles radiating from a central one. The quilter is showing how the fabrics in her stash blend into one another. Here's a close-up of the colour wheel in the middle.
The quilting in this highlights the circle motif even further.
The second of Norquay's quilts to make it on to this list, clearly she was feeling circles this year. This one also caught the attention of the judges, as you can see it won The Quilters' Guild Challenge (the theme was 'Express Yourself'). Anyway, this quilt - actually a tetraptych (and yes I had to look that one up, try saying it 10 times quickly) has beautifully embroidered birds set in circles on a variety of green backgrounds. 'Couched' means she has used an embroidery technique where the main, thicker thread is laid on top of the fabric and held in place with small stitches along its length with a thinner thread. Here are a couple of detail shots.
This quilt just had something that kept me coming back to it. Beautiful work.
Rainbow quilts
This category is returning for the third time, because I like rainbow quilts a lot. However, there were a lot fewer, at least proportionally, this year than in previous years.
Entry 1 - Modern Art Quilters BOM 2, by Helen Howes
I am always a sucker for rainbow samplers against a black background. This is a nice example of one. Here are some close-ups.
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| BLOCK CAPS! |
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| Baby CAPS! |
This quilter made the same quilt twice and entered it in two different categories. Once as a full-sized quilt in the Modern category and once as a tiny quilt in the Miniature category. Both are gorgeous and stunning, but the miniature one is far more technically impressive. I love the whole concept of doing the same thing twice like this.
A lovely rainbow blend of diamonds, made with Tula Pink fabrics. This looks to be an English Paper Piecing quilt, and what I particularly liked about it is the little fussy cut pieces in the centre of each diamond, as you can see in these detail shots.
I also like the way she has quilted each diamond differently, and hidden little shapes and motifs in the quilting. You might be able to make out a thread bobbin and a sheep in the diamonds either side of the red heart one in the second detail shot.
This a beautiful planned-scrappy rainbow of part New York Beauty blocks. It's a big, bed-sized quilt. I seem to have failed to take any detail shots of this one, which is a pity, because it has a lot of nice detail in both the piecing and the quilting.
Entry 5 - I danced along a coloured wind, by Amy Kidd
And the winner is.... Shine Bright Like A Diamond, by Diane Wilks.
It was the fussy cutting and the hidden quilting motifs that beat the competition.
Ridiculously tiny piecing
A technique favoured by the hard-core Fou
ndation Paper Piecing crowd, there were quite a few quilts demonstrating ridiculously tiny piecing - I'm talking pieces that were a quarter inch wide or less - on display at the Festival. And they were by no means limited to the miniature category of quilts, there were whole bed-sized quilts made up of ridiculously tiny pieces. Here is my pick of them. Please note that in shots that include my hand for scale, no quilts were touched by me or my jewellery.
Entry 1 - A Mini Adventure, by Kerry Keeble
To indicate just how small these pieces are, here's my charm bracelet next to it. The circle on my bracelet is about the size of a pound coin.
This quilt was in the restrospective gallery - it was actually the winner of the miniature category in 2012 (a year I didn't attend). Miniatures are a maximum of 30cm squared. For scale, here's my hand next to it.
In the explanation of the quilt, the quilter wrote "I enjoyed sewing flying geese blocks and I wanted to see how small I could sensibly go." There is literally nothing sensible about going this small. Here's a detail shot.
Entry 3 - Unknown title and maker
This was hanging in the traditional quilts section of Quilter's Guild lounge. It's an autumnal coloured log cabin mini quilt. The entire quilt is about 24inches square, so the tiny 'logs' you can see in the detail shot below are a quarter-inch wide.
Entry 4 - Barnum and Bailey, by Daisy Dodge
SONG LINK: The Other Side from The Greatest Showman, performed by Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron
This quilt was absolutely massive. It was probably close to the maximum allowed, which was 3m square. And it had just so many tiny pieces! While they aren't quite as insanely tiny as some of the other nominations in the category they are pretty small - some of these half square triangles are definitely only half an inch. But to do so many pieces that small on a quilt this large is just ridiculous, so it absolutely qualifies for this category according to me (and I make the rules here).
Entry 5 - Passion for piecing log cabin, by Joy Harber
Another quilt from the Winner's retrospective (this won the Quilter's Guild challenge in 2015), and another absolutely massive quilt with so many tiny pieces. As you may recall from last year, I'm a fan of log cabin quilts. The 'logs' on this quilt are only a quarter of an inch thick (I think, and the quilter has managed incredible precision through mostly strip piecing - only the pineapple sections are Foundation Paper Pieced. The smallest pieces within the pineapple sections really are tiny. And to just have so many tiny pieces in a large quilt of this size is ridiculous. Here's a couple of close-ups.
And the winner is... A Mini Adventure, by Kerry Keeble.
I chose this category in honour of my own quilt with its blue einstein hat shapes. And also because blue is my favourite colour. Once I started looking for blue quilts, there were so many of them. Narrowing down the candidates for this category was not easy.
SONG LINKS FOR THE CATEGORY: Blue by Eiffel 65, The Blue Song with Blippi
Entry 1 - The Deep Turquoise, by Carmen Bickle cabi-quilter
You can see that even this quilt features some of this year's trendy circle details.
Entry 3 - I Wonder, by Anna Julia
SONG LINK: I wonder as I wander
It was the beautiful blue background that first caught my eye about this. It's made up of indigo one-block-wonder style kite hexagons, and this gives the effect of snowflakes (this along with the title, is why you get a Christmas carol for your music selection). The hexagons can be hard to see because of the wavy quilting which gives the effect of wind. And they have cleverly interspersed some lovely 3D-effect blocks. The beautifully crafted child figure gazing out in wonder at it all just makes it. This is a really gorgeous quilt. Here's a couple of detail shots.
Entry 4 - Idolize Yourself, by Laura Armiraglio
SONG LINK: Dancing with myself by Billy Idol, White wedding by Billy Idol
This tribute to Billy Idol is from the Sustainable Category, which means it is made from at least 70% upcycled materials - in this case, clearly old jeans. The quilter mentions in her statement that the whole quilt is made from jeans belonging to her and her family members.
Denim is not an easy fabric to work with in quilts, especially if you are going for something pictorial like this, and the quilter has used a lot of clever fusible appliqué and free motion embroidery and quilting to get these effects. Here are some detail shots.
There are at least 6 song titles sewn into the quilt, I've given you my two favourites to enjoy, but feel free to go down a YouTube rabbit hole enjoying the rest if that's your thing. As I was looking at this quilt, two women spotted it, and the older one declared 'I was going to marry him!' The younger one clearly didn't recognise Billy Idol or even know who he was, and looked very confused.
A very much more traditional quilt, this time. Hoggarth's inspiration from the blue tiles that she saw in Portugal (and indeed are present in much of the Mediterranean world) instantly jumps out at you. According to her description in the programme, the central bird is directly inspired by the logo of the cable car in Funchal, Madeira. Here are a couple of close-ups.
And the winner is... I wonder, by Anna Julia
Special Awards for Mathematical Quilts
Having entered a mathematical quilt myself, it would be remiss of me not to honour the other quilters who did so. I limited this category only to quilts that were explicit in their mathematical inspiration which has left us with only two quilts. I am not choosing between them, so they therefore both receive a Special Genevieve Award.
Doubling blocks, by Suzanne Pass
This quilt is made of blue English Paper Pieced 'tumbling blocks' appliquéd to a densely quilted white background. For its mathematical content, we have a visual representation of the powers of 2, (starting from 20). Here are a couple of detail shots.
This quilt is from the Miniature section. This is based on a Penrose tiling pattern using two tiles - two different diamonds. Before the discovery of the einstein hat used in my own quilt, this was the smallest number of tiles that could be used to tile a plane aperiodically. In her accompanying words in the Festival programme, Bieman delights in the fact that the aperiodic nature of the Penrose tiling pattern means it is highly unlikely anyone else will ever make another quilt of the same exact pattern that she has used.
Joy of Sharing - Genevieve's Highlights
This is a new category this year at the Festival of Quilts. It's for people who want to display their quilts without going through the judging process for whatever reason. One of the great things about the Festival of Quilts is it is not juried - they display everything they receive and if you didn't meet the eligibility criteria for your category, they display it there anyway, and you find out discreetly in the feedback from the judges which is given to you when you get your quilt back afterwards. So the point of the new category is to encourage even more people to display their quilts. For many people the reason they choose this new category is because they lack confidence in their own abilities - even with the openness of the Festival they are unwilling to put themselves through any sort of judgement. And I think anything that gets more people feeling they are able to participate is a good thing. However, looking at the various entries in this category it was clear that some people used it as a way of entering quilts that were too large for the miniatures category, but not big enough for the main categories. And actually, I think that's quite a nice way of increasing the variety of quilts on display, there's no particularly good reason to have all quilts between 30cm square and 100cm on one side absent from display, though I do understand the need to have minimum size requirements for the competition element so there is some parity in the demand level involved for participants.
Anyway, here are my highlights from this year's category!
Highlight 1 - Learning to Longarm, by Jenny Dods
This lovely, big quilt has a beautiful rainbow blend, and really stands out for its colour. Clearly the quilter decided to put it in the Joy of Sharing category because, as the title states, it's a practice piece. But I am glad they did, because it is so beautiful. Here are a couple of detail of detail shots.
Highlight 2 - The Greatest Show on Earth, by Andrea Gorman - Raggedy Ruff Designs
This mouse circus is just so adorably cute! I am a particular fan of the lighting effect and the rainbow border. I suspect it ended up in Joy of Sharing because the width might be a little under the one meter necessary for the judged categories, because there is no other good reason this couldn't have sat happily in the Art or Pictorial category.
Highlight 3 - Self portrait with Prosecco, by Cathrine Grøndahl
This mini quilt is great. I love the expression in the face, and the 3D nature of the glasses on the head. This is made with a collage-type technique using lots of different textured fabric.
In this close-up of the prosecco class, you can see the quilter has used a doily to get the bubbles effect of the prosecco. This is such a clever idea, in my opinion.
This quilt is clearly too big for the miniatures and too small for the judged categories, and I am glad that the Joy of Sharing category lets it be included in the Festival.
And now the big category...
Genevieve's favourite
Entry 1 - My haven, by Danuta Owczarek
This stunning pictorial quilt looks like a painting. I didn't see anything else at the whole show that even came close to managing a painterly style. She has made a quilt look like French impressionism, almost like Renoir or Monet. The quilter has used small scraps of fabric attached by raw edge appliqué to create the brushstrokes effect. Here are some close-ups.
Entry 2 - The Turning of the Seasons (The Fox and the Hare), by Leah Walker/Patchwork Picnic
SONG LINK: Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds
This quilt is bright and colourful with clear subject matter. I like the mix of different patchwork techniques with the pictorial animals and the more traditional blocks in the middle. Here are a couple of detail shots.
Entry 3 - British Isles, by Freya Askham, Debbie Charlton and Helen Nisbet
It's a map quilt! Which is a very quick way to win my heart. I like the little boats, and the dolphin and the mariners compass in the sea. And the more traditional block dotted about the land. Here are some close-ups.
Entry 4 - Reaching, by Helen Creasey
SONG LINK: Part of your World, from the Little Mermaid (1989)
(Nothing against the more recent version, I just haven't seen it yet, and I'm not spoiling it for myself for the sake of song in a blog post)
This quilt had the luck of being placed in such a way that it was visible from quite far away - that is if you were fortunate to come across it at a time when there wasn't a crowd of admirers (which there often was, hence the awkward angle of my photo). This quilt is big, beautiful and instantly arrested my attention every time I went past it. The way the lighting effects have been created with the different blue fabrics is so clever. And there is lovely dense quilting to create wave, hair and scale effects. Here's a close-up of the mermaid's face.
One final award for 2023...
Extra Special Award for unknowingly stealing my stash and remaking a quilt my Mum made 35 years ago
Oddly enough, just the one quilt in this highly specific category!
Then as I looked more closely, I spotted a lot of my own fabrics. Compare these detail shots with some shots of fabrics from my stash (and even some of my blocks from the #focuscuttingsewalong).
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| Her quilt |
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| My block |
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| My fabric |
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| Her quilt |
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| My block |
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| Her quilt |
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| My Fussy Cutting Forest quilt (still a Work in Progress) |
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| Her quilt |
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| My fabric |
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| My fabric |
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| Also my fabric. This one featured in my Hats Off To You quilt |
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| Her quilt |
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| My fabric |
I think my point is made!
I have never met this woman. She is in Canterbury, so not particularly near me, I can't find her on Instagram, and I have no reason to believe she follows my blog or reads it at the Peacock Party. But for some reason she quilts like she's hanging out at my house.
To make things slightly creepier, I spotted another one of her quilts in the Master's students section.
And again, my Mum has made appliqué quilts of cats looking out of windows (though no stained glass ones that I can remember. Her stained glass quilts had other subjects). I went through a long phase of sketching and embroidering cats in this pose when I was about 9 years old. I would add pictures of these, but they are at my Mum's house (and possibly in storage), and she's in France at the moment. But this is yet more evidence that Ms Drawater somehow has access to the quilty archive in my head.
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