Quilts and Klimt

What an exciting weekend. On Friday morning Jude and I headed up the M6 to the Festival of Quilts. So much wonderful work from such talented people I wouldn't know where to start to describe it all so instead a collage of just a small sample of the work that caught our eye.


We also met with some fellow bloggers - I've never yet met a blogger I didn't think was lovely and Friday was no exception. Mai-Britt and Jackie - it was great to meet you. Also had a chance to chat with Maggie Grey who as ever was wonderfully generous with her knowledge. I can't wait to try out some of the techniques she showed us - all of which are in her in her book. Of course I had to buy a copy - would have been rude not too!

I think I was quite restrained in my purchases (well... compared to last year) but I did buy another book which is full of great looking things to try. All I need now is some more time....

After FOQ we got back onto the M6 and head up to this city...

After not too much driving up and down the dockside we found we our hotel which was very luxurious and also happened to be where Melanie C was staying the night as she was playing at a concert at the Docks. We didn't get to see Mel C though because we were far too engrossed with our luxury bathroom and this amazing shower!

After several showers later we were ready to hit the town on Saturday morning... and straight outside our hotel was this... the Liver Building.

We both got rather excited and carried away remembering episodes of the Liverbirds... which for some reason prompted this...

Moving on very quickly from that last photo... we also spotted several of these strange creatures - superlambananas - which are situated all over Liverpool.

Eventually we got around to the reason for our trip - the Klimt exhibition at the Tate. We both enjoyed the exhibition but had some prior idea of what we were going to see which was not actually a show devoted to the work of Klimt. It was more about a group of artists known as the Viennese Secession, of whom Klimt was the leader. There were a lot of photographs, models of buildings, exhibition catologues, furniture and housewares as well as a substantial number of Klimt drawings and paintings. I could imagine it would have been a disappointing exhibition if you were expecting a blockbuster show of Klimt paintings. But the work that was on display was stunning and it was an interesting and informative exhibition. This was one of my favourites.

We managed a light lunch at the Tate Cafe before setting back home - but not before we saw these power boats racing on the Mersey. An exciting end to an exciting couple of days!