I first attended FoQ in 2006, missed out 2007, can’t remember whether I went in 2009 and 2020 was cancelled which means I have been to 17 (I think) and at least 14 of those years I was working as a longarm demonstrator.
Birmingham is often hot while FoQ is on and set-up day was around 30 celsius so we all melted as we got the stand ready. Thank goodness for the good humour of the UK Bernina team and everything was made ready, with just a few swear words, for the crowds on Thursday.
Thursday and Friday were pretty busy but Saturday was oddly quiet and we dreaded that Sunday might be a slow day but it turned out better than expected. Working on a stand means that you don’t get the same opportunity to wander around at a leisurely pace, browsing the competition quilts or doing shopping. To be honest, I have reached the point where I rarely make any purchases because I really don’t need any more quilting “stuff”. In the end I bought a pattern for a stuffed toy Axolotl and a signed copy of Nicholas Ball’s book.
I zoomed around making a silly video on my scooter early one morning, ignoring a security person who warned me, “No whizzing!” On the last morning I was more sensible and made several short clips on my phone which I plan to make into a Youtube video about quilts that grabbed my attention.
For once, I was in total agreement with the Best in Show quilt, “Dear Humans”, a pictorial quilt which was exquisitely done.
The gallery that I enjoyed the most was by an American quilter, Sidnee Snell. The pieces were a mixture of photographic and abstract. They all had saturated, solid colours but seemed felted or like watercolours. The quilting was actually very simple but the pieces were washed when the stitching was completed so had a more textured finish.
I enjoyed seeing old friends and made some new ones. I missed having the Qmatic computer on the longarm stand as it always bring people in out of curiosity. It is always fun to show people a longarm who have never seen one before and the reactions vary from those who think it is cheating to those who are blown away by the possibilities.
Quite a few people asked why I did not have a quilt in the competition. The answer to that is perhaps that a) I have been busy with Life, b) I am not sure that I have been hit by sufficient inspiration and c) my personal standards are higher and I know that I have to devote far more TIME than I can to such an endeavour. Who knows what will happen by 2025?!
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