quiltfest
  • Quiltfest 2023
  • Quiltfest 2021
    • Val
    • Rebecca Collins
    • Maureen Poole
    • Gwenfai Rees Griffiths
    • Traders
    • Invited Guests
    • Reg 13 in Quilters' Guild Collection
    • Letters and Numbers
    • Landscapes
    • Flowers
  • Previous Exhibitions
    • Quiltfest 2020 >
      • 40 Years and Still Stitching
      • Song of the Celts
      • Traditional Stars
      • Cauldron
      • Ten Plus
      • Invited Members' Quilts
      • Traders' Quilts
    • Quiltfest 2019 >
      • Trading Day and Colwyn Quilters
      • Maps Exhibition
      • Just One Day Exhibition
      • In Print Exhibition
      • Modern Quilts Exhibition
      • Colwyn Quilters
      • Trading Day
    • Quiltfest 2018 >
      • Quilts at The Pavilion
      • Quilts at The Museum
      • Trading Day
    • Quiltfest 2017 >
      • 1001 Nights
      • On The Edge
      • Wrexham Tailor's Challenge
      • Miniatures
      • Make and Take
    • Quiltfest 2016 >
      • NinetiesCollection
      • Wrexham Quilting Circle
    • Quiltfest 2015 >
      • Region 13 Challenge
      • Contemporary Quilt Challenge
      • Dislocation by Contemporary Quilt Group
    • Quiltfest 2014 >
      • Barbara Howell: A Retrospective
      • Going Dutch
      • Cestrian Quilters
    • Exhibition 2013 >
      • Susan Briscoe and Friends at the Pavilion
      • Rieko Domon at the Museum
      • Cwiltcymru
      • Threadbare
    • Exhibition 2012 >
      • Ferret 2012
      • Magie Relph 2012
      • Dilys Fronks 2012
    • Exhibition 2011 >
      • Made in Wales - DeAnne Hartwell-Jones
      • Made in Wales - Other Artists
      • Passage Defined - By Design
      • Trees and Carved in Cloth - Turning Point
      • Miniatures by Sandra Goldsbrough
      • Quilts in the Library
      • Trading Day
      • Ario Workshop
    • Exhibition 2010 >
      • Effie Galletly 2010
      • Contemporary Quilt 2010
      • Liesbeth Williams 2010
      • Celtic Connection 2010
      • Borderlands 2010
      • Exhibition 2005 >
        • Travels with Cloth - New Horizons Group
        • Pat Salt 2005
        • Invited Artists 2005
      • Trading day 2010
    • Exhibition 2009 >
      • Nikki Tinkler
      • Hanging Together
      • In Response
      • Bethan Hughes
      • Peaceful Hearts
      • The French Connection
      • Kate Cawley 2009
    • Exhibition 2008 >
      • Elizabeth Brimelow 2008
      • Calendar of Kings 2008
      • Invited Artists 2008
      • Sisters' Choice 2008
    • Exhibition 2007 >
      • Chiaroscuro 2007
      • Boutis 2007
      • Hot and Cold 2007
      • Miniatures 2007
      • Invited Artists 2007
    • Exhibition 2006 >
      • Pat Storey 2006
      • Images of Wales 2006
      • Invited Artists 2006
    • Exhibition 2004 >
      • By Design 2004
      • Invited Artists 2004
    • Exhibition 2003 >
      • Edrica Huws 2003
      • Invited Artists 2003
    • Exhibition 2002
  • Contact us

Quiltfest 2012
Magie Relph
A Bucketful of Fabric

Say Africa
 - Magie Relph

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78cm x  66cm

The title comes from a song by South African musician Vusi Mahlasela, who sings these beautiful words:

I may be walking in the streets of a city called London ,

But the dust on my boots and the rhythm of my feet and my heartbeat Say Africa .

Magie Relph





Vitambara
- Alison Farmer

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120cm x 80cm
Inspired by mud painted strip cloth, joined with a patchwork of African fabrics and embellished with goodies from Nairobi market. My husband Graham said, ‘All I can see is strips’ – hence the name, which in Swahili means ‘strips of cloth’.

Alison Farmer

I met Alison many years ago, when I judged her quilt as the winner in an ‘African Challenge’ at a Quilters’ Guild Regional Day. We next connected in Nairobi when the Kenya Quilt Guild invited me there to teach. Alison and I both seem to have Africa and quilting in our blood, which is probably why we’re such good friends.

Magie Relph


African Odyssey 1
- Janice Gunner

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132cm x 102cm

This quilt marks the beginning of my journey of discovery using African textiles. I feel particularly challenged and inspired by wax print: how can I use the bold designs and colours and integrate them into my own artistic style?

Janice Gunner

There may never have been an African Fabric Shop, if it hadn’t been for Janice’s support and encouragement. She insisted that I bring my suit case full of African fabric scraps along to Marsh Quilters and the African Fabric Shop was born. Janice always looks forward to staying over because she gets to sleep in the African Fabric Shop.

Magie Relph

Magie
- Dorita Smith

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110cm x 110cm
It shouldn’t be hard to guess who I was thinking about when I made this new piece using – what else? – African wax print.

A foundation pieced string quilt based on a traditional technique where I could use up small scraps of fabric – 8 ounces in total.

Dorita Smith



Beryl
- Dorita Smith

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37cm x 137cm
Inspiration came from hexagon wall tiles in the V&A cafe and the gem room at the Natural History museum – hence the name Beryl after the semi-precious stone. Made for my niece, so lots of the fabrics have meaning for her: the pen and paper fabric, as she is a journalist, M is her initial and, of course, shoes! Hand stitched over approximately six months as the final piece for my C&G certificate.

Dorita Smith

Agatha
- Dorita Smith

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145cm x 145cm
I
designed this piece as a ‘mystery quilt’ project for some of my students. The idea is that you can keep adding to it or stop at any stage and still have a finished piece of work. I’ve used one of my favourite methods for selecting fabrics – just throw the stash at it!

Dorita Smith




Feather and Stripes
- Isobel Holland

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122cm x 55cm
I started this quilt in a Janice Gunner workshop – just having fun playing around with the fabrics.

Isobel Holland


African Odyssy V
- Janice Gunner

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115cm x 37cm
African wax print inspired me so much that one quilt led inevitably to another, and another and another...

Janice Gunner



Malaria Dreams
- Isobel Holland

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130cm x 75cm
The theme ‘African Dreams’ for a quilt show made me ponder the dream of eradicating malaria in Africa . The quilting and the buttons represent the anti-malaria tablets that are still mostly for tourists, not Africans.

Isobel Holland 

I met Isobel at a Quilters’ Guild Regional Day, only to discover that she lives in the next village! Since then, we’ve become good friends. She’s helped me at shows and pitched in to ‘man the shop’ while we’re in Africa . She came to quilting via embroidery and was not one for patterned or printed fabrics, but I soon converted her to African fabrics!

 Magie Relph


African Stems
- Magie Relph

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125cm x 110cm
Patchwork, for me, is all about working with the fabrics: cutting them up and puzzling them back together again.

That’s Flower Stems: take the same African wax print fabric in four colourways, cut up and reassemble – then quilt!

Magie Relph


Indigo Road
- Alison Farmer

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113cm x 113cm
Indigo Road is from a pattern called ‘Drunken Nine Patch’ by Lynne Edwards.

I thought it would look good using my collection of indigo wax prints.

Alison Farmer




Silver Moon
- Janice Gunner

Picture
50cm x 25cm
Created to accompany the British Museum ’s
Fabric Of A Nation exhibition when it toured to
the Luton Museum .

Inspired by the wonderful design on this indigo
wax print – a perfect case of ‘less is more’.
I machine quilted using metallic thread, then applied the contrast fabric.

Janice Gunner






Leaving the Accra Quilt Show
- Helen Conway

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56cm x 112cm
Inspired by the queues for the shuttle buses leaving the Festival of Quilts: ladies of all descriptions – tall, short, fat, thin, able-bodied and health-impaired – all revelling in the delights of fabric shopping!

Techniques and materials as for Grasslands.

Helen Conway

Helen amazes me, constantly juggling her busy work life with an even busier creative life. The inspiration she finds in the fabrics is – well, inspiring. And so are her quilts.

Magie Relph

Grasslands
- Helen Conway

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Pieced and fused, machine and hand quilted. Materials include hand-dyed cottons, abacca tissue, beads, wire, mulberry paper, laminated paper, garden cane, acrylic paint, beads, Perle threads and – of course! – the wax print scraps left over from Leaving The Accra Quilt Show.

Helen Conway



The Peg Challenge

What happens when you mix quilters, their husbands, a wacky African wax print and a couple of bottle of wine?
Answer: “The Peg Challenge”
Born out of Janice’s desire to have a piece of one of Magie’s latest wax print finds, one that was supposedly going into her collection. Janice was heard to say “That would make a great fabric for a challenge!”
Somehow the men got involved. Peg titles were thought of and put in a hat – we each picked one out. 

And here we are...

Pegmalian
- Janice Gunner

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130cm x 100cm
This quilt brings back the childhood memory of going to the cinema with my grandparents to see Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.
Eliza Doolittle’s flowers became my theme, so as Eliza said, ‘I’m a good girl, I am.’
In other words, I got the quilt finished on time!

Janice Gunner

Pegged Out
- Bob Irwin

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74cm x 61cm
Inspired by the time I pegged my trousers out to dry on an electric  fence.
Burned those trousers up real good!


Bob Irwin



Square Peg in a Roundish Hole
- David Gunner

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75cm x 75cm
This is my first quilt. Before I retired, I spent my working life in science, so I thought it would be a fitting challenge to make a quilt shaped like a Mobius Loop.
Here it is: the world’s first never ending quilt!

David Gunner



Pegs Might Fly
- Ann Mayner

Picture





















103cm x 71cm
I always said ‘pegs would fly’  before I ever did a Sunbonnet Sue quilt.
Well, here she is: the one and only black African Sunbonnet Sue, surrounded, of course, by flying geese – what else?

Ann Mayner



J Peg
- Magie Relph

Picture
102cm x 43cm
J-pegs are digital images, which got me thinking about how photographs used to be created in the darkroom – after developing they were pegged up to dry. These pictures document some interesting moments in the history of
The African Fabric Shop.

Magie Relph


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  • Quiltfest 2023
  • Quiltfest 2021
    • Val
    • Rebecca Collins
    • Maureen Poole
    • Gwenfai Rees Griffiths
    • Traders
    • Invited Guests
    • Reg 13 in Quilters' Guild Collection
    • Letters and Numbers
    • Landscapes
    • Flowers
  • Previous Exhibitions
    • Quiltfest 2020 >
      • 40 Years and Still Stitching
      • Song of the Celts
      • Traditional Stars
      • Cauldron
      • Ten Plus
      • Invited Members' Quilts
      • Traders' Quilts
    • Quiltfest 2019 >
      • Trading Day and Colwyn Quilters
      • Maps Exhibition
      • Just One Day Exhibition
      • In Print Exhibition
      • Modern Quilts Exhibition
      • Colwyn Quilters
      • Trading Day
    • Quiltfest 2018 >
      • Quilts at The Pavilion
      • Quilts at The Museum
      • Trading Day
    • Quiltfest 2017 >
      • 1001 Nights
      • On The Edge
      • Wrexham Tailor's Challenge
      • Miniatures
      • Make and Take
    • Quiltfest 2016 >
      • NinetiesCollection
      • Wrexham Quilting Circle
    • Quiltfest 2015 >
      • Region 13 Challenge
      • Contemporary Quilt Challenge
      • Dislocation by Contemporary Quilt Group
    • Quiltfest 2014 >
      • Barbara Howell: A Retrospective
      • Going Dutch
      • Cestrian Quilters
    • Exhibition 2013 >
      • Susan Briscoe and Friends at the Pavilion
      • Rieko Domon at the Museum
      • Cwiltcymru
      • Threadbare
    • Exhibition 2012 >
      • Ferret 2012
      • Magie Relph 2012
      • Dilys Fronks 2012
    • Exhibition 2011 >
      • Made in Wales - DeAnne Hartwell-Jones
      • Made in Wales - Other Artists
      • Passage Defined - By Design
      • Trees and Carved in Cloth - Turning Point
      • Miniatures by Sandra Goldsbrough
      • Quilts in the Library
      • Trading Day
      • Ario Workshop
    • Exhibition 2010 >
      • Effie Galletly 2010
      • Contemporary Quilt 2010
      • Liesbeth Williams 2010
      • Celtic Connection 2010
      • Borderlands 2010
      • Exhibition 2005 >
        • Travels with Cloth - New Horizons Group
        • Pat Salt 2005
        • Invited Artists 2005
      • Trading day 2010
    • Exhibition 2009 >
      • Nikki Tinkler
      • Hanging Together
      • In Response
      • Bethan Hughes
      • Peaceful Hearts
      • The French Connection
      • Kate Cawley 2009
    • Exhibition 2008 >
      • Elizabeth Brimelow 2008
      • Calendar of Kings 2008
      • Invited Artists 2008
      • Sisters' Choice 2008
    • Exhibition 2007 >
      • Chiaroscuro 2007
      • Boutis 2007
      • Hot and Cold 2007
      • Miniatures 2007
      • Invited Artists 2007
    • Exhibition 2006 >
      • Pat Storey 2006
      • Images of Wales 2006
      • Invited Artists 2006
    • Exhibition 2004 >
      • By Design 2004
      • Invited Artists 2004
    • Exhibition 2003 >
      • Edrica Huws 2003
      • Invited Artists 2003
    • Exhibition 2002
  • Contact us