European Patchwork Meeting 2023

 I arrived home from my wonderful European holiday with Covid! I had avoided it for all this time; anyway, I am better now and can start to get back to normal.

We had wonderful weather on our holiday and loved the European Patchwork meeting in France. It is set in the Alsace region amongst four gorgeous villages.

Our tour group stayed out of town and so we arrived by bus and spent two days at the show.

This is the entrance to the main town, Saint Marie aux Mines.

In those tents were lots of businesses selling their wares, which led to the main building that was filled with various patchwork businesses, selling fabric, thread and patterns etc.

All the buildings, halls and churches were filled with various quilt displays from around the world.  We walked around each village looking at all the exhibitions.

Here are a couple of photos that I took as I walked around so you can see how picturesque it is.

There were wonderful bouquets of flowers decorating the streets and window boxes.

We started off with morning tea, how I adored the French bakeries, everything is so light, fluffy and delicious.

I loved the exhibition of coats by Marijke van Welzen.

The Seamstress by Marijke van Welzen

Here is a detail photo.

Of course, I also loved the under water coat.

Underwonder World by Marijke van Welzen

There were so many gorgeous coats, here is another one but I didn't get the name of it.

Flower coat by Marijke van Welzen

I felt very tempted to start making coats!!

Another exhibition in a church was called Perspectives on the Natural World. Here are two of the quilts.

Palila by Phillis Cullen

Nature's Distraction by Heather Bennett

In another village was an exhibition by artists around the world called 15 x 15 where they took their inspirations from famous artists. Here are just a couple of them.

David Hockney by Helen Hazen

Frida Kahlo by Sonia Ruiz

Mondrian by Greetje Hein

There was a whole room of wonderful examples and I took so many photos.

There was another exhibition of quilts by Spanish quilter Inmaculada Gabaldon. Her quilts look like watercolour paintings to me.

Las Aparioncias Enganan by Inmaculada Gabaldon

Libres Para Volver al Carnaval by Inmaculada Gabaldon

Todos Diferentes by Inmaculada Gabaldon

There was another exhibition of quilts by a Korean artist called Jongkyeong Lee.

Essay on Transparency by Jongkyeong Lee

The photos I have shown are just a small section of the hundreds of photos I took. There were many traditional displays too but with only two days there, I had to concentrate on the art quilts. As well as seeing all the displays there were lots of shops, lectures, talking to people, eating and travelling on the shuttle bus to get to the different villages.

I wish that we could have stayed longer. I am planning to go back in 2026. I had lunch one day with a lady that organises the exhibitions and we have arranged an exhibition of Australian quilts in 2026. How exciting.

I think that it is my favourite quilt show ever, as well as there being so many exhibitions, the setting is so beautiful. Inspiration overload, I couldn't wipe the smile from my face.

I will write more about my wonderful holiday in another post.

Bye for now,

Linda