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From Our Founder - Val Shields |
It was suggested that as founder of the event, I should be asked to pick a favourite from each display. It is an impossible task, I fear. In the early years, I picked every item and I admired them all for one reason or another.
To paraphrase something written by Jerome K. Jerome concerning work I will say “I like quilts. They fascinate me. I can sit and look at them for hours. I love to keep them by me...”
In July 2001, I agreed to present a display of Quilts in the Pavilion in Llangollen during February 2002. During August, I approached quilters in Region 13 whose work I admired and asked them to give me a wall-hanging come February. In September, my husband and I drove across France to Alsace to attend that year’s Carrefour in the Val d’Argent. (It was the day of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York – never to be forgotten).
The next day, we went first to see the display by June Barnes who was the British Quilter being promoted that year. I told her about the coming display in Llangollen and she immediately offered me my choice of anything she was showing in Alsace. This immediately widened my horizons! I made a list of those I considered my twenty top British makers and when we got home, I wrote to them all, asking them to send me something. I enclosed a SAE hoping that would at least ensure a reply! It did and all were positive! How could I choose a favourite from amongst that selection? I could perhaps suggest June’s and also Janice Gunner’s. She was then The Quilters’ Guild’s Exhibition Officer and had offered to open the Exhibition. She had a Nursing friend in Wrexham and could visit her!
Happenstance and serendipity played a part in future years! An article in Merched y Wawr, the publication of the Group similar to the WI in Wales, in late 2002, had caught Gwenfai’s attention. Whilst phoning me on another matter, she happened to ask why there was nothing by Edrica Huws in The Guild’s Collection. I had never heard the name and asked her to explain. The upshot was that the second Quiltfest, (yes! The first had been such a success that I was asked to make it an annual event every February), introduced the work of this amazing artist to British quilters. She was already famous in France and Japan – and that’s another story!
Everything in 2002 was shown after my sending a special request to the makers. I promised to hang items carefully and securely and to return them by the same method as they were sent to me. This year I also set up a Trading Day on the second Sunday in February which was designed to raise enough money to cover all exhibition expenses. It turned out to be a great success and established Quiltfest in our national quilting calendar – where it remains today
To paraphrase something written by Jerome K. Jerome concerning work I will say “I like quilts. They fascinate me. I can sit and look at them for hours. I love to keep them by me...”
In July 2001, I agreed to present a display of Quilts in the Pavilion in Llangollen during February 2002. During August, I approached quilters in Region 13 whose work I admired and asked them to give me a wall-hanging come February. In September, my husband and I drove across France to Alsace to attend that year’s Carrefour in the Val d’Argent. (It was the day of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York – never to be forgotten).
The next day, we went first to see the display by June Barnes who was the British Quilter being promoted that year. I told her about the coming display in Llangollen and she immediately offered me my choice of anything she was showing in Alsace. This immediately widened my horizons! I made a list of those I considered my twenty top British makers and when we got home, I wrote to them all, asking them to send me something. I enclosed a SAE hoping that would at least ensure a reply! It did and all were positive! How could I choose a favourite from amongst that selection? I could perhaps suggest June’s and also Janice Gunner’s. She was then The Quilters’ Guild’s Exhibition Officer and had offered to open the Exhibition. She had a Nursing friend in Wrexham and could visit her!
Happenstance and serendipity played a part in future years! An article in Merched y Wawr, the publication of the Group similar to the WI in Wales, in late 2002, had caught Gwenfai’s attention. Whilst phoning me on another matter, she happened to ask why there was nothing by Edrica Huws in The Guild’s Collection. I had never heard the name and asked her to explain. The upshot was that the second Quiltfest, (yes! The first had been such a success that I was asked to make it an annual event every February), introduced the work of this amazing artist to British quilters. She was already famous in France and Japan – and that’s another story!
Everything in 2002 was shown after my sending a special request to the makers. I promised to hang items carefully and securely and to return them by the same method as they were sent to me. This year I also set up a Trading Day on the second Sunday in February which was designed to raise enough money to cover all exhibition expenses. It turned out to be a great success and established Quiltfest in our national quilting calendar – where it remains today
