European Patchwork Meeting Alsace 2014

I have been wanting to go to the EPM for as long as I have been doing patchwork, but other commitments meant I have never had the chance. Then I had a gap this year where I could fit it in, so booked my place on the P&Q Tours. Very nearly missed it as events at home prevented me from going on the trip from the start, but lovely husband said I could still go a few days later than originally planned, so flights were booked and a car to take me to the hotel where the rest of the group were staying in, in Colmar. I arrived on the Wednesday evening and was so pleased to see some ladies in the group before I even checked into my room, some which I have met on previous P&Q trips!
We had a lovely coach driver, Steve, who is Welsh and entertained us with music from the valleys on some of our journeys.
Ste Marie aux Mines was about an hour's journey from Colmar, through lovely countryside, mostly we travelled on the main roads, but Steve took us on some of the back roads on our last day and we drove through some lovely little villages, that I am hoping to come back to with my husband, so that we can explore them properly.

Statue of Liberty in Colmar, designer of statue came from Colmar

The show is not all in one centre, but spread out amongst venues in the villages of Ste Marie aux Mines, Ste Croix aux Mines, Liepvre and Rombach-le-Franc as well as at the Parc Minier Tellure, which is about 5km outside Ste Marie. There are shuttle buses that run between the villages, sometimes they got very full and large queues formed with some ladies getting a bit forceful to get onto the coaches, they run approximately every 20 minutes to start off in the mornings, but this becomes more of a just wait until the next one comes later on in the day.

Ladies from Japan visiting Ste Marie Aux Mines

I never made it to Rombach or Liepvre as there just was not enough time to do it all, but what I did see in the other villages made up for what I did not see.
The vendors are mainly concentrated in the centre of Ste Marie and it would be easy to spend a day just wondering and looking and shopping here. Most of the vendors could speak a little English, some very well, it did help to understand a little bit of French at others. Lots to see and buy that is not available in the UK, there seems to be a trend with wool fabrics and a lot of rustic country themed fabrics too. Also a lots of Lecien style fabrics and LOTS of ribbons. Not all the vendors were French, some were German, some from Prague and Poland, it really is European, but good to see some American vendors too, like Edita Sitar, with her fabulous laser cut appliqué pieces. Wonderful to finally meet Claudia Pfeil too and to see Handiquilter stall and chat with Nate.
The vendors were not all in the same building, but were all concentrated in the same area, many inside large marquees or market style pop up stalls next to the big marquee tents. Nearby was a restaurant within another big marquee tent, but along the main street were lots of small vendors selling their street cuisine. I had some fabulous vegetarian vegetable pancake sandwiches with pesto and goats cheese filling and vegetable juice from one stall for lunch one day. Some of the other stalls sold breads and pastries, potato rosti, salamis and dried sausages, pizzas and pretzels. Lots of local restaurants too, where you could sit inside or outside, were doing a roaring trade with all the extra visitors to the towns.
Coffees and teas with cakes were sold in some of the larger venues too.
Lots of shops in the villages have quilts on display in the windows, some very nice ones:

Some of the exhibitions are in churches and village halls, some in museums and theatres. You can pick up a brochure/program with locations, maps and exhibitions from the Tourist Information shop in Ste Marie or from the entrances to the larger exhibitions. It is not possible to post photos from all the exhibitions, so I will just post some of my favourites here:

Regret at mown motley grass by Elena Folomeva from Russia

The Crystal by Elena Nekrasova from Russia

The Fifth Wheel by Anna Urusova from Russia

The aroma of meadows by Irina Korotkova from Russia

Freedom by Helen Godden from Australia

Detail of Freedom

Cinese dragon and phoenix by Ming Hsu, Australia 

Detail of Chinese dragon and phoenix

Counterpoint by Pam Hill, Australia

Summer: Kangaroo paws and Billy Buttons by Suzan Mathews, Australia

Flax Lily by Bernardine Hine, Australia

Purple Haze by Karen Terrens, Australia

Detail of Purple Haze

Dartmoor walk by Kate Dowty, UK

Southern Delight by Marlya Waters, Australia

Detail of Southern Delight

Pine Branch by Elsbeth Nusser-Lampe, Germany

Detail of Pine Branch

Taste of India by Christine Seager, UK

The Seven Spices by Yemima Lavan, Israel

Libby by Sandrine Osterman, France

Red Poppies by Beatrice Bueche, France

Balancing Act by Linda Forey, UK

Vague a l'ame by Dominique Fave, France

Burning Sky by Yoshiko Koshi, Japan

Woodpecker by Noriko Endo, Japan

Constellation - beyond time and space by Yoko Kageyama, Japan

Detail of Constellation - beyond time and space

Space Fantasy by Yumiko Matsubara, Japan

Detail of Space Fantasy

Cherry blossom at night by Kayoko Tonegawa, Japan 

Flowerly and Lightly by Mitsuko Kinoshita

Detail of Flowerly and Lightly

Cameria in Love by Naomi Horikita

Reve de flour by Hilde van Schaardenburg

L'oeil by Hilde van Schaardenburg

Edge of a feather by Linda & Laura Kemshall, UK

Detail of Edge of a feather

Beachcombing by Sheena Noirquay, UK

Detail of Beachcombing

My absolute favourite quilt at the show was:

The great tree by Noriko Matsutou

 I have done a separate post on the "50 Variations of Yoko Saito's Mystery Quilt" and the Groupe Crossing Oceans Exhibition with the theme "Nature" as they deserved a special mention.
I do hope that my pictures will inspire some of you, I certainly came back home with a head full of ideas, now to find the time to actually execute some of those ideas!

On the way back to UK, we travelled through lovely wine areas in France and stopped in Epernay, where we had a tour of the Champagne Mercier cellars, a champagne tasting and opportunity to buy some champagne. Well worth a stop over.

The Tun, also known as The giant task, weighs 23tons when empty

The Tun, 5.5m tall, 6.5m long, capacity 213000 bottles of 75cl

When empty needed to be pulled by 24 oxen

Wonder how many times have this come up in a quiz? Sizes of bottles in order from right:

Quarter bottle 0.20l

Half bottle 0.375l

Bottle 0.75l

Jeroboam 3l

Mathusalem 6l

Salmanazar 9l

Balthazar 12l

Nabuchodonosor 15l

And as we were travelling through wine regions, I sewed my "grapes" block of the Dutch Treat, so I have a lovely reminder now of this trip.

Longarm classes with Kim Brunner

Wow! I had no idea it has been so long since I have last posted on here. I can only apologise and say that Life has a habit of sometimes throwing stuff at you unexpectedly.
Since the Festival of Quilts, I had a week at home before returning to Birmingham for Kim Brunner's long arm quilting classes at The Cotton Patch. I've been at home for a week when we heard that my father in law has taken a turn for the worse. My husband and I took turns to sit by his bedside for the next 5 days and nights (thank goodness our children were all at home and could help with running the house) before he sadly passed away on the Friday. We now have the funeral this Wednesday, but as I am flying to France on Wednesday evening for the European Patchwork Meeting in Ste Marie aux Mines, in Alsace, this is the only opportunity I have to do an update.

Classes with Kimmy Brunner
Unlike in the states where there are loads of quilt shows and loads of classes available for long arm quilters, this is a fairly newish venture for UK quilters and we have very few opportunities to learn from the experts. Liz at The Cotton Patch has however attended a class by Kim at Houston last year and arranged for Kim to come and run some classes for us. Yayyyyy!!!!!!

Kim was here for 5 days and classes on offer were:  
   - Beautiful freehand work
   - Twirly Whirly feathers
   - Playing with plastic (templates and rulers, not credit cards!)
   - Custom Quilting
and lectures
   - From Wow to Pow! Trapunto for the beginner
   - Transforming your work with templates and rulers


Off course I signed up for all the classes and lectures and I am so glad I did. I have done Kim's online Craftsy class  "Machine quilting with templates" which I thoroughly recommend, but nothing beats the classroom experience. Besides, it gave me the opportunity to meet and mix with fellow Handiquilter owners, some of whom I have been friends with on Facebook for ages. Funny how we have never met in person before, but within minutes of actually meeting, it seemed as though we have known each other for years!
We had all agreed to stay in the same hotel, which meant we could socialise together after class each day. On one evening we all brought our favourite quilting books and had a look through them all deciding which ones we would need, on another night we all had a go at cutting shapes on the Go-cutter. We spent ages in the pub across the road from our hotel and had lots of time to just chill out together. On our next trip together, Marjorie will be doing all our manicures for us(!). Kim could not believe it when we told her we have never actually met each other until the course.

Stitch design avoiding the centre point with possibly lots of joining seams

One of Kim's class samples - LOVE the border

Another class sample - demonstrating use of rulers

The classes were fairly small, so Kim could give us each individual support when needed, the ladies with Sweet 16's all worked on their own, but those of us who have Avante's or Fusions, worked 2 per machine. That worked out fine, but on the Custom Quilting class, we had not quite enough time to finish our class sample. Silly me did not take a photo of Kim's sample, and as it is a while since the class, could not remember exactly how Kim's block was quilted, so I had to improvise and then did LOTS of extra micro stitching! So, my sample is loosely based on Kim's block with a bit of improvising thrown in, but I am really happy with how it has turned out. It probably is the first class sample I have brought home incomplete and actually finished! 

I have learned a lot from Kim, particularly with using rulers. Might have to do some continuous curve designs with my circle rulers soon :-)

As a bonus, Kim's class handouts have all the information that she has covered in class, so I have a permanent record of all that was said and can refer back to it whenever I need. Thank you so much Kim for the excellent classes and handouts!

"Crowning glory"

Back of "Crowning glory"

Dutch Treat update
Having set myself a target of 10 blocks per month, and having fallen way behind with this (epic fail), I have joined a Facebook group of quilters who are all doing a Dutch Treat quilt. One lady in this group has completed her fourth Dutch Treat quilt! Joining the group has encouraged me no end and I feel so much more inspired to finish my Dutch Treat now, so with renewed energy, I have managed to complete a further 17 blocks, all in the last 3 weeks, so now have a total of 151. I will hopefully have all the blocks complete by Christmas and will then start the appliqué on the borders in January.

134 blocks laid out together for the first time 

6 blocks in 1 week - my record so far!

11 done in last 2 weeks 

Secret block
Someone I know is retiring soon and a friend has organised a surprise for her in the form of a quilt that will be made by all her friends. We are all making a block each, with the same 2 fabrics. This is my block:

I have left space to embroider my message and name on the block, but as this is a surprise, I will not be posting another photo of it on here, although I do hope to see the finished quilt at some time.

My next post will be when I return from the European Patchwork Meeting.