An Egyptian purchase at the Festival of Quilts

As many of you who follow me will know, I love to collect world quilts and investigate the techniques and the people who made them. So whether I am travelling abroad or attending events in the UK, I am always looking out for something new and beautiful to add to my collection. This year's Festival of Quilts was a great event, as usual, and added another quilt to my collection!

For the whole 4 day event, my stand was opposite the Tentmakers of Cairo stand, and I was mesmerised!

Ahmed showing me one of their amazing quilts

Below is a Facebook live I recorded on the first day of the Festival at the NEC where I was shown around the stand by Ahmed Kamal Swedan who is a representative of the Tentmakers.

 

Chariah El-Khaimiah was built around 1640 and is now the The street of the Tentmakers, and we were lucky enough to meet one of them, Hosam Hofany. Here is a demo of how Hosam does the applique that the tentmakers use to decorate their quilts. He was so fast!

The colours are amazing! They concentrate on plain fabrics and adding texture with simple hand stitching lines.

So after 4 days of looking at these amazing quilts from my own stand, I nipped over on the last day and brought one of them for my collection.

This one was made by Hosam and I persuaded him and Ahmed to pose with me :)

I chose this one in particular because I fell in love with the colours and the bird designs are simply stunning. I love the graded colours in the wings and how the detail is added with the simple stitching.

The simplicity is at the heart of the beauty of these quilts, and now I am lucky enough to own one! I think some part of this quilt will make it's way into one of my own projects some time soon :)

If you want to know more the Tentmakers here.