Out & About: Wemyss School of Needlework and Fife Folk Museum

Log Cabin Quilt at Fife Folk Museum

As part of the C&G Diploma in Patchwork and Quilting that I am teaching, the students are required to produce an illustrated history of the past two hundred years of patchwork and quilting.  This is an area that interests me and I have a number of books on the subject, but no actual examples for them to examine.  And seeing real quilts brings it to life.  So the hunt was on to find some antique quilts reasonably locally.  Whilst Glasgow Museums has a great collection of embroidery, there are not many quilts in their collection and apparently it is very hard to get an appointment to view them (I'm willing to be corrected and visit the collection if I've got this wrong!). 

One of my students in the other Diploma class, Catherine Palmer, had been investigating where she could see quilts and had made a visit to Fife Folk Museum last year, where a lovely volunteer, Margaret, had looked out all the information she could find on the quilts in their collection.   So I got in touch and on Tuesday we went to see the quilts.  As it is a bit of a distance from here, we combined it with a trip to Wemyss School of Needlework, which is relatively close by.  Wemyss does not have a huge collection of quilts, but it is also good to be aware of other forms of stitching and they had some lovely examples of embroidery.  

Viewing at Wemyss School of Needlework

The sun shone and it felt like a bit of a road trip - especially when the sat nav on my phone directed us to the waste transfer station in another village 15 minutes away!  
However, when we finally got to Wemyss, there was a lovely sense of calm in the 

Workroom.  

More of Wemyss School of Needlework

On the huge table there were some examples of quilting laid out for us, along with some exquisite embroidery and records of the people who made them.  Fiona Wemyss gave a great talk, setting the collection in context and then we were free to look around for a closer examination.  Photos of specific textiles were not allowed, but general shots were, which is what I have here.  There was also a well stocked embroidery shop, which was raided by many of the students (and me!).

Enjoying the sunshine at Ceres

On to Ceres, to Fife Folk Museum, and they had not fibbed when they told me it had a great cafe!  The cakes were wonderful.  We had a private viewing of the quilts which had been specially hung by some of the volunteers.  We had a lovely session examining the quilts and the records in detail, sharing our knowledge of quilts with the volunteers, whilst they filled us in on the history that accompanied those quilts.  

Unflattering student photo at Fife Folk Museum

My photos are not great or numerous as my phone battery was almost dead by this point!  

Blurry photo of a lovely hexagon quilt at Fife Folk Museum.  I got very excited by the red fabric, which had lots of regular holes in it - where a different colour dye has eaten the fabric

I'd highly recommend a visit to either place and will definitely be revisiting the Fife Folk Museum soon - it had lots of other interesting things to see, but we ran out of time.  Well, actually, we chose to have coffee and cake rather than running round the other galleries!

This silk quilt at the Fife Folk Museum had a lovely paisley shawl as its backing

Mhairi Matheson's amazing miniature quilts

Miniature by Mhairi Matheson.  I think this was my favourite one

As part of the C&G Diploma course, the students have to make a proper miniature quilt.  This is not my area of expertise and I was delighted that Mhairi Matheson was able to visit and share some of her miniature with us at the weekend. 

Miniature(detail) by Mhairi Matheson

Mhairi loves making miniature quilts and has made over sixty.  This is no mean feat, given that it is often said that a miniature quilt takes the same amount of time to make as the equivalent full sized one.  She has made miniatures in many different styles, including foundation pieced, traditional block patchwork, appliqué and even contemporary styled quilts.  Her skill in all of these is impressive.  I can struggle to make my points match on a 12in block – she can manage to do so perfectly on a 1in one!

Group of miniatures by Mhairi Matheson

Miniature quilts for competition purposes (and Mhairi has won a fair few) have strict guidelines and it was interesting to have some of them explained.  I knew that a miniature had to look like a full sized quilt if photographed – with no sense of scale you should not be able to tell that it is tiny.  Mhairi’s quilts meet this criteria as one of the students had shown me a photo of this quilt taken at the Festival of Quilts and I hadn’t realised it was a miniature at all to start with.  However, to get this correct sense of scale, everything tends to be made on a 1/12^th scale ie a full sized 12in quilt block should be made as a 1in block.  So a 2in quilt block would not be generally be considered a miniature as you don’t tend to get 24in full sized quilt blocks. 

Miniature by Mhairi Matheson

Miniature (detail) by Mhairi Matheson, showing the foiling on the trees

Mhairi’s enthusiasm was contagious and even the mini-sceptics amongst us were (almost!) converted after seeing all of her wonderful work.  Can't wait ti see what the students now make.  

Miniature by Mhairi Matheson

Remember when looking at these photos that none of these quilts is bigger than 12in (30cm) square and that any wonky angles are due to my photography rather than Mhairi's making.

Miniature by Mhairi Matheson

Miniature by Mhairi Matheson

Miniature (detail) by Mhairi Matheson

9 Top Tips for Getting the Most Out of a Museum Visit

How to make the most of a museum research visit as a quilt artist

Floating heads by Sophie Cave

Following on from the first weekend of the C&G Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting 10 days ago, last weekend was the first weekend of the Diploma (more advanced) class.  It was lovely to see some familiar faces who had undertaken their Certificate with me at the Loch Lomond Studio and to meet the new students.  Our two topics for the weekend were research and playing with mixed media.  Permission to play is very important!

Urn from the Early People's Gallery

As part of the research, we made a visit to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow.  If you haven’t been, it is well worth a visit.  The breadth of the collection is huge and there is always something I haven’t noticed before that takes my interest.  Which is why we were there.  As part of the Diploma, each student has chosen their own subject matter for research and I was hopeful that the Museum would have something to interest everyone.  I decided I didn’t want to put them off research by taking them to a specialist museum, although I think you can (virtually) always find something of interest no matter how unpromising the museum’s collection sounds.

Part of a very old boat

Although the members of this group, like me, were generally museum junkies, many newbie artists/quilters don’t visit museums regularly and some don’t know how to approach a visit to get the most out of it.  So here is some advice on things to do to get the maximum inspiration from a visit (and yes, quilters should visit museums and art galleries as well as quilt shows – perhaps more so)

From the Early People's Gallery.  I forgot to note down what this was as I was mostly interested in the detail than the whole object

1.   Look for an object or painting that relates to the subject that interests you.  Sketch it in two different ways (ie a line drawing, shading it, drawing with dots rather than lines).  Also you don’t need to draw the whole object – just the bits that matter to you – you’re doing research not trying to recreate someone else’s work.

Have I mentioned I like the Floating Heads by Sophie Cave?!

2.   Try out different media.  Draw an object/painting more than once using different implements such as pencil, pen, felt tip, Inktense, charcoal etc.  Get really adventurous and use several media on one drawing!  Before doing this, do check that the museum allows you to do this – some will only let you use pencils (so don’t forget the pencil sharpener and the eraser).

More Floating Heads

3.   Draw before photographing.  Yes, it can be intimidating, especially if you don’t think your drawing is any good, but remember most of the passers-by can’t draw any better than you, no matter how bad and it is a great way to start a conversation.  You will be asked lots of questions.  Why draw first?  So you commit the artwork to your memory, rather than to your camera’s memory.

4.   Find a work by an artist you haven’t heard of.  Think why you like it and find out more about her/him either at the museum or when you get home to see if you like their other pieces.

The Surprise Find - this is a Lowry and there isn't a matchstick cat or dog in sight

5.   Find an artist who creates work on the subject which interests you and look at how they have approached it – what do you like / don’t like.

Pattern on a Viking stone

6.   Look for five patterns you like.  This could be on the floor, the ceiling or on an ancient pot.  Obviously the number 5 is arbitrary, but having a goal is always useful.

View of the floor down one of the long first floor galleries

7.   Find a work you really dislike and work out what about it has triggered such a negative reaction.

I loved this work by John McLean, but many of my students were less keen on its 'naive' style

8.   Look in the bookshop – you may discover books that you didn’t know about or old exhibition catalogues of interest.

9.   Enjoy the cafe!  You will need a rest – your brain will become saturated, which is another reason to start with drawing first before this happens and before your feet get sore.

A detail of the building

I think that just about sums up how I tackle museum visits... in theory at least!  This time, I spent most of the day in the cafe, making sure that the students could find me if necessary.  When I did finally go for a wander around, I realised I was rather hungry and couldn’t concentrate on drawing, so just photographed instead, thus breaking my own golden rule.  However, I do have some plans to use the photos in the future.  Watch this space!