NEC Festival of Quilts time again!!

This year Towse went off with a coach load of other quilters from Amersham arriving at the NEC just as the doors opened at 10am. Just as gob smacking an experience as ever but at least I managed to see far more of the whole exhibition including displays of Fine Art Quilts and 3D objects that I never even got a glimpse of last year! Although I didn't need to buy anything I still managed to come back with a little more to stock the stash plus a pattern and fabric to attempt my first stained glass style panel in due course (which was all the excuse I needed to buy some wonderful bright batiks from Doughtys!

Here's some photos: of some little 12" panels from groups around the world on the theme of Seasons:

Random quilts that caught my eye. This year I realised that I was less interested in the samplers of my first visit and more taken by colour and patterns, particularly the use of 3D and optical illusion:

Like these fish. If you look closely you will see that the curves are an illusion. This is something I think I want to experiment with at some point in the future.

Loved these two as well - the way the first one has a sense of falling away. It took me a while to see the skull too! Up close it was like a fiddly log cabin.

Loved the colour in this Australian aboriginal design - ended up with some wonderful fabrics from a similar designer too. And lastly my beloeved celtic inspired works. Still rather too intricate for me to tackle I reckon.

Didn't expect to find a Tudor doublet! And the wonderful 3D purple velvet dog's head so reminded me of our lovely Teazel:

Glynis managed to find some of the winning entries, so here they are in all their wonderful variety:

A long, (our coach had a dead battery and we were two hours late leaving the NEC), but lovely day,plenty of inspiration.