The quilt show at Quilt Festival included a challenge which I thought was very clever and the quilts were extremely creative. The challenge was to make a quilt inspired by an advertisement. The quilters could choose any advert they wanted and the adverts were displayed with the quilts. Here’s a sampling of these wonderful quilts and the accompanying adverts that provided the inspiration.

What fun! “My Little Blue Car” by Nicky Hunter Smith, (65 cm x 75 cm), inspired by an advert in a car magazine. The first place winning quilt was this lovely antique sewing machine, “Vintage Sewing” made by Marianne le Roux (62 cm x 68 cm). Marianne used all kinds of vintage fabrics, lace and buttons on her quilt to create a wonderful collage with free-motion stitching holding it all in place. Inspiration came from not only the advert and vintage materials, but also from quilting teacher, Catherine Hammer Fox.

Trienie Krugel, the second place winner, made “Renovation”, (58 cm x 72 cm) using black silk strips machine stitched onto the background to represent towel rails. I like the interesting shape of this quilt, mimicking the image in the advert and the introduction of the colored Prairie Points that match the background colors of the different taps. The advert came from South African Homeowner Vol 4.4, July/August 2003.

“Blue & White Plus One!”, made by Phillida Fisher, (111 cm x 113 cm) was inspired by an advert from The Private and received highly commended. A variety of techniques including hand painting, hand dying, and applique were used to make this attractive blue and white piece.

I was intrigued by this amazing metallic-looking quilt, “Senseless” by Tilly de Harde, (62 cm x 78 cm). This is a protest quilt depicting the senseless killing and dwindling numbers of rhino. The advert from Birding Magazine, shows an hourglass with a tree dropping through and gathering in the bottom as a pile of sticks. It says, “It’s simple. The longer we wait, The more we lose.” As Tillie’s rhinos drop through the hourglass, they are reduced to a heap of rhino horns. Tillie used fuse and burn techniques to create the holes and burnt fringes around the edges. The machine quilting details of the rhinos are amazing.

These quilts were truly inspiring. Participating in a challenge is a great way to encourage creativity and experiment using new and unusual techniques.