Orpington Quilters
At our May 2023 we were entertained by Tony Mansi and his talk on the Canadian Red Cross Quilts that were donated to Europe, but mostly to the UK, during the second world war.
At our May 2023 we were entertained by Tony Mansi and his talk on the Canadian Red Cross Quilts that were donated to Europe, but mostly to the UK, during the second world war.
At our June meeting we were delighted to receive Sylvia Critcher as our guest speaker.
Sylvia trained at Goldsmiths College in Fine Art and Textiles and this gave her a solid background for her own teaching of doll making, fabric printing, embroidery, patchwork & quilting, and a further wide range of related textile subjects. At Kent Adult Education in Sevenoaks she ran Parts 1 & 2 City and Guilds Creative Studies in Embroidery and Patchwork & Quilting & Design. Prior to running this course she took this C&G course herself at Beckenham to see how it worked, it took 3 years to complete.
Her background is impressive. She had been a judge at national quilting events for many years. She writes articles for national magazines. She demonstrates at quilting events and holds workshops as an invited quilt expert at all the major quilt shows and fairs across the UK and overseas.
The creation of a teaching sample to illustrate the combining of Italian quilting, trapunto and French boutis has led to a revival for corded and stuffed work, and is now something Sylvia teaches and demonstrates widely.
She created several patterns for raised quilting pieces using trapunto and corded techniques and was approached to produce a book of patterns. Whilst she was open to this idea, she insisted that all the contents were new projects, not a repetition of samples shown at exhibitions or created at workshops, She also insisted that the full-sized pattern pieces be included in the book. Talks with the initial publishers did not progress but eventually Search Press finally got the book "Raised Quilt and Stitch" into publication.
Here are many examples of Sylvia's work.
This is an ivory quilt, using trapunto and cording to create the raised quilting effect.
On the right is one of the corner patterns made into a cushion cover.
Here is a beautiful purple and green quilt which was hand quilted with silver Mettler thread. This piece is not actually in Sylvia's book as it was created for an exhibition. It took six weeks to design, cut out and put together.
This is a whole cloth sampler quilt. In this example, the whole cloth term is used as each block is made from the same piece of fabric and the blocks joined together, rather than the top being made out of one large piece.
On the right is the closer detail of the bottom right corner.
Sylvia is often asked what inspires her designs and projects. She says ideas can come from anything: a leaf, a shape, even a doormat! She uses butter muslin and quilters calico and good quality polyester wadding for bounce, An HB pencil is her preferred method of marking up a pattern.
A bucket bag
An evening bag, quilted in black thread
A cushion with main features quilted in coloured threads but the background is quilted in white.
This raised quilting technique can be used to create a wide variety of pieces.
Two beautiful table runners
A framed picture
A cot quilt, or wall hanging
A Christmas table table runner
Both of these pieces are embellished with a variety of crystals and buttons which have been either glued or sewn on.
A Christmas table centre piece
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Sylvia's talk and appreciated all her tips, advice and explanations as we poured over her samples afterwards. We were very grateful for her time in giving us this insight into raised quilting.
At our May 2023 we were entertained by Tony Mansi and his talk on the Canadian Red Cross Quilts that were donated to Europe, but mostly to the UK, during the second world war.