Festival Of Quilts – Part 3 – Amy Butler
I had heard of Amy Butler in episode 88 of Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood’s Craftsanity podcast, so when I saw that there was going to be a light meal and then a talk last saturday night as part of The Festival of Quilts up at the NEC, I decided to go along. The meal started at 7:30, and this time there was no set seating, but I managed to get one seat on a table of animated ladies from all over the country and there was plenty of chatter and sharing of what people thought about the show and the quilts in particular. There was mention of some designers/sellers that I didn’t know about, but that’s down to the fact that I’m not fully into the quilt world (yet!).
The food was ok – some of the sandwiches were beginning to dry out a little, but that’s a hit that had to be taken I suppose. What wasn’t clear was that the talk was actually going to be in the next room – the first we knew anything about it (despite some of us having been in the room from the beginning) was when others near the front suddenly got up en masse, and started leaving, which caused a little bit of a “well where are they going?!” moment.
We all sat down in the next room and on each chair was a freebie handout – the pattern etc for Amy’s “Bed Bug Pillows” which are simply too cute for words. Amy then gave a talk about her recent trips to India and Thailand, where she had picked up a load of inspiration for her new fabrics, and she had also met up with the people making some of the Amy Butler rugs. She is trying to licence these into John Lewis in the UK at the moment. They look stunning, and I wonder which, if any, would fit into my place (the colours are just amazing so it would be a case of whether the colours, rather than the size would go into my current decor). Her next set of fabrics look great, and you can see where the inspiration comes from. There was no scaling, and I haven’t seen any of her fabrics in real life, so I don’t know how big some of the images are. The templates for the Lady Bug cushions are on an A3, so I guess the patterns are fairly large.
Amy has also announced a competition – Entries to be accepted until September 15th, to mark the one year anniversary of the Midwest Modern fabric line. There is 1 rule – make a sewing project using her Midwest Modern fabric producing any sewing project of your choice. A picture of your completed project should be emailed to contest@amybutlerdesign.com (NOT ME!) by the 15th September. The top 10 winners will receive: Fat quarters of her Midwest Modern Fabric. a signed copy of Amy Butler Softwares and a selection of her newest sewing patterns. There is also a flickr board at: www.flickr.com/groups/1131229@N23/
I think she did do a Q&A session, but to be honest, I nipped out to get the half hour bus back to the train station. 40 minutes later I found out why the Metropole dont actually advertise the times the free bus does go (apparently every 30 minutes, on the hour and half past). That’s because it doesnt and it costed me a £7 taxi ride to the station. Hmmmm.
The dampner for me for the weekend was the hotel itself – drinks were overpriced, the food was average at best and the shuttle service was definately not what I would expect and overall spoilt what was otherwise a well organised and enjoyable exhibition.
Tags: Amy Butler, craftsanity, Festival of Quilts, quilts, Twisted Thread
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