This Blog is unbelievably overdue as I try to get my ‘Crafting Cap’ back on and get back out in the workshop.

The third Midsomer Quilting 12 X12 Exhibition certainly impressed us again.  The sheer creativity of Midsomer Q customers and friends continues to be very inspiring.  The Exhibition ran in December and had over 200 entries.  This years theme was ‘Films/Movies’ and Chris hoped it would be the biggest yet!  This years theme followed the two previous categories of ‘Fruit’ and ‘Books’.  The 2011 and 2012 entries can be seen on their website alongside the description by the artist creating them.

Entrants could then let their creations be placed in an auction to raise money for Dorothy House hospice.

We visited the exhibition as a family and had the opportunity to vote on our top 3 entries – it was fascinating to see how different our choices were and the reasons they touched us.  Some of our favourites are below, some we picked because they were technically amazing, others approached the title with a funny interpretation whilst others were just beautiful and inspiring.

Below are some of our favourites.

ET Technically amazing and to top it all if you dimmed the studio lights the finger glowed.

Alfred Hitchcock

Series of nine 12 X 12’s, so imaginative and technically intricate.

Silence of the Lambs!

Charlottes Web

Beautifully painted and quilted.  This picture doesn’t do it justice as the wooden surround of the barn is raised and between the wooden beams Charlottes spider web spells out WILBUR!  We feel in love with this one and were lucky enough to be the successful bidders.  It is now hanging in my daughters room and we are part way through the book…..

‘UP’

The Black Swan

The Italian Job 

The Long Road to Freedom 

The Red Shoes 

The World’s Fastest Indian 

The Shawshank Redemption.

This year I choose to do two 12 x 12’s.  The first was ‘Pulp Fiction’ and the second ‘Schindlers List’.

‘Pulp Fiction’

1994

American dark comedic crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino

The films title refers to the pulp magazines and crime novels of the mid 20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue.

The film is described as having a ‘trippy fantasy landscape’. It emphasizes the banal or kitschy elements of culture, most often through the use of irony.

The blender ‘pulps the fiction’ in a Pop Art style.

‘Schindlers List’

(1993)

‘Into the Abyss’

Oskar Schindler (1908 –1974) was a German industrialist, credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.

He showed extraordinary initiative, tenacity, and dedication in order to save the lives of these Jewish employees.

I knew as soon as the 2013 title was announced that I wanted to attempt to depict this film.  Since my  teenage years I have been interested in WW2 and particularly the Holocaust.  I vividly remember reading a book from the library about Auschwitz and being really affected by the ability of people to follow a cause/leader to this level. Loosing all sense of human kindness and performing such acts of depravity.  My father was very interested in the War and we visited Northern France on a number of occasions to see some of the Normandy beaches and museum.  Even as a teenager I remember being shocked by the scale of the beautifully kept War cemetaries.

I wanted to make the iconic railtrack into Aushwitz out of the human remains and artifacts of those whose lives ended there.  It needed to be dark so I started finding black and white images of the piles of shoes, suitcases, bags of human hair, glasses and prayer shawls that were collected after the camps were liberated.  The image is surrounded by the names of the 6 (known of) extermination camps and the number of estimated deaths that took place there.  Finally the quilt is framed with a bright yellow edge, this is the only real colour in the quilt and I wanted it to depict the bright yellow star the Jews had to wear to distinguish them from the rest of the population.

I was pleased with the concept of the quilt but building it was no easy task.  The printer paper I bought to transfer the image onto the fabric was a disaster, it refused to pass through my printer.  Finally Chris at MQ came to my rescue and printed all the images onto a special fabric for me – a new printer is definitely required!

The quilt, in the end was very rushed as time was against me with the closing date.  Technically its far from my best piece but it did capture something of the horror of the story behind the film.

The 2014 title will be Music, so better get my thinking cap on early to avoid the last minute rush of last year!