KTAA annual exhibition

well it's taken me ages to find the time to sit down and write about the show, but being president has meant that I've been just a little busy. And of course I've been back to England in the meantime. I have also had a new camera to sort out, and dh bought a new computer the other day, which is great because I can put the camera stuff on it, but has meant ages spent moving files from old computer to new computer, yadda, yadda.....

The quilt group meeting on the Monday before the show was the big reveal of everyone's work, which was a great morning, but left us reeling from sensory overload. Finally got home just in time to meet my daughter off the school bus, and crashed. Tuesday was hanging day. there were about 10 of us, split into the two halls, and for the most part we all worked together pretty well. The lady in charge made us redo something a couple of times, and one whole wall of mini quilts was moved somewhere completely different, but there was no actual bloodshed. I had organised lunch for anyone who wanted it, and various other ladies had brought plates of goodies in too, but sheez, trying to get folks to stop work and eat was a nightmare. Next year, I might buy a siren!! The judges arrived from 5pm onwards and I left them to the care of the outgoing president.

Our judges were Australian quilt artist Jenny Bowker, who flew in from Cairo where she currently lives, Canadian quilt artist Linda Hancock who has been living in Kuwait for several years but who is returning to her home in Canada, and Noelle Aleyagut, a medical illustrator and artist who lives here in Kuwait. Somehow they had managed the almost impossible task of selecting various winners in each of the categories, and various highly commended. Each judge had their own judge's choice rosette to award, and then finally, there was a best in show.

On Wednesday a friend and I spent the day making canapes for the opening. she had a lady staying with her who is going to be moving out here in January, and who was just here for a look/see. So obviously she was press ganged into working too.

The evening was a great success. probably about 100+ people came, all the local press was represented, a couple of ambassadors and their wives, unfortunately not Sheika Altaf as her travel plans changed, a host of members, some of their husbands, and the rest must have been rent a mob. But what a fabulous evening. Prizes were awarded, with more than a few surprises along the way. This year our members seem to have been keen to take on the challenge of art quilting, and we had a fair mixture of both traditional quilts and art quilts displayed in the exhibition. I think though it came as a surprise to some that the best in show went to a traditional sampler quilt.

Throughout the exhibition, Jenny Bowker ran 2 one and half day workshops, which must have exhausted her, but were thoroughly enjoyed by the students. We looked at designs from nature and working in tiled patterns, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anybody is brave enough to develop their designs further into a quilt.

If I can work out how, I will put some photos up, but for now I intend to finish this and post it as it is embarrassingly late.
hooray, here we are. this one in the middle of course had to the first one, because it is my entry in the Faces of Arabia section, and is my first ever solo quilt. It will be on display in the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in August, along with all the other amazingly beautiful quilts in this category and a couple of others, Stars, and Self Portraits.






















This beautiful blue and white sampler won the best in show, and the Shades of Autumn was the visitors choice. Both are by Penny Armitage.
In no particular order, here are some of the other quilts from the show.