janestarz | Open European Quilt Championships 2013

I read about the OEQC (quite a tongue-taker, that) on Dorry's blog and of course I had to attend. Last Sunday I drove to the hotel just outside Veldhoven and was staggered, impressed and inspired by the quilts on display.

There were a great number of quilts entered in the competition, and I guess they can only display so many. There were also quilts on display not entered in the competition. The Norsk Quiltforbund as well as the Dutch Quilter's guild had work on display. Several of the Norse quilts were very impressive, and a very nice lady from the Norse guild explained the back story.

I love quilts because they're so colourful. So much thought has gone into picking the design, picking out the colours and matching the fabrics. But I also love how quilters stretch their medium to the max, try a number of techniques and fabrics and hardware together to get to one end result.
It was all there.
Three-dimensional pieces, and not just quilts that were filled and stitched to create dents, no: real 3d pieces, moulded into a body shape.
See-through quilts of many layers, where stepping to the side or the back of the quilt revealed quite a different picture.
Quilters using silk, beads, cross-stitch embroidery, metal, buttons, and all sorts of things just to get that final picture together.

Several quilts had me gasping as I looked at them. I'll share the one that hit me like a two by four. Click it to view the entire set.