Unsung Muses at the European Patchwork Meeting

Unsung Muses by Gillian Cooper

I'm still trying to process the European Patchwork Meeting in my head.  In all honesty, it passed in a bit of a blur.  Over a year building up to it and then it is over in four short days.  It was a very busy four days.  The family waited expectantly with me for the doors to open on the first day and the first visitor was very prompt and very positive about the work, which was lovely.  And then there was barely a moment when someone was not looking at the work.  There was definitely an ebb and flow of visitors, timed with the arrival of the shuttle buses, but the rooms were seldom empty.

Unsung Muses by Gillian Cooper

There was a huge mixture of languages, of which I reckon English was about fifth or sixth in the list.  It felt like there were roughly equal French and German visitors, then large numbers of Dutch and Danish quilters, then Italian and English speakers.  There were also Swedes, Koreans and Russians - a truly international mix.  I only speak two of these languages and my French improved greatly as I learned a lot of French quilting terms.  It also amused me, like in English, how many different ways you could describe a similar term.  There were two words for wadding, like in English (second one being batting in American English).  It was also a bit shaming at how well most visitors spoke English, given how little I speak in other languages. 

Lots of visitors

Unsung Muses was well received by most of them.  The language of appreciation is universal.  It was lovely when people made the effort to come up and say how much the installation had touched them.  We also made the local newspaper on the final day, which was fun.  The kids were very pleased to be mentioned and it was fab that Richard's huge support was also mentioned.  He drove the whole way there and was a mega help in hanging the work, as well as keeping me and the kids on the straight and narrow!

Unsung Muses by Gillian Cooper

A huge, unexpected bonus for me was that the local ladies of the church were running a tearoom in the kitchen of my venue, with fantastic home made cakes.  I had peach tart, plum tart and a Mille feuille over the course of my exhibition.  At the age of 40-something this week, I had a brace fitted to sort out a dental problem and am now not meant to eat sugary things for 18 months. I'm so glad it was after the EPM, not before!  

Yummy plum cake

Unsung Muses at the EPM

Lovely shadows