Wow, what a year it was!
At Festival of Quilts 2022 a conversation took place bemoaning the lack of a contemporary quilt group in the Surrey and Sussex area, so Annie Henderson-Begg, Sue Norgrove-Moore, Deena Goff and Janine Pound got together that autumn to begin to turn the idea into reality. A constitution was written, insurance bought, venues researched and explored and finally, notices were put in the quilting press. A room was booked for 23 January 2023 at the Old Barn Hall in Great Bookham, Surrey,
We wondered how many people would show up and if we would cover the cost of the room hire. We needn’t have worried. A fabulous group of textile enthusiasts arrived, and happily contributed to the show and tell of work, and discussions about how the group should be shaped. Word got out and within three months we had to book a bigger hall!
The keys to CQ Surrey’s success are a friendly group of members, and an ambitious programme of talks, workshops, challenges and swapping of ideas. Meetings additionally also include members’ ‘show and tell’ sessions, a raffle, a swaps/sales table and great cake!
Our programme in 2023 was pretty packed for the first year of a start-up group, but the enthusiasm of members helped us deliver all of the following…
JANUARY – Our introductory meeting and discussions about what everyone wanted from the group going forwards. Our first ‘show and tell’ and we were astounded by the variety of work.
FEBRUARY – We launched our first CQ Surrey Challenge – Viva Magenta! This was the Pantone Colour of the Year, so we purchased Art Gallery fabric and gave everyone who wanted some, a piece to do with what they liked for our inaugural challenge. In the afternoon we had an in-house Transfer Dyeing workshop.
MARCH – Jane Wheeler ran a ‘How to Work with Circles’ Workshop. A technique that has come in very handy subsequently for many of us.
APRIL – Alison Livesley and Liz Howlett ran a session on ‘How to Critique Positively’. In the afternoon, some of the committee ran a workshop on Machine Embellishment. An expensive afternoon, for those members who had never played with an embellisher before, caught the bug and went on to buy a machine!
MAY – Instead of a meeting, we planned a group visit to West Horsley Place to see the Guildford Quilters Exhibition.
JUNE – During the morning we welcomed our first ‘outside speaker’. Teresinha Roberts (from the company Wild Colours) shared with us her love of Natural Dyes for Textiles.
That afternoon we had our first Challenge Reveal. It was joyful to see so many members producing a wide variety of work based on our Viva Magenta! theme.
JULY – Mavis Walker brought her FoQ prize-winning 3D textile chess pieces. As each piece was revealed, Mavis explained the story behind all of the characters. In the afternoon, Mavis continued the theme and ran a ‘Let’s Get Stuffing’ workshop. We all went home with fabric dolls. We also launched our second Challenge – Inspired by West Horsley Place.
AUGUST – Following on from Teresinha’s talk, we had a workshop Natural Dye day run by Janine Pound. With three different work stations to move between, we all got to play with onion skin dyeing, turmeric and eco-printing with leaves and flowers.
SEPTEMBER – Sophie Levi-Kallin was our second-ever external speaker. She showed us her Urban Landscape textiles. In the afternoon we enjoyed a ‘Bonded Applique for the Built Environment’ workshop.
OCTOBER – This month was particularly busy. Buffy Fieldhouse gave a quick demonstration of paper lamination techniques and showed some of her resultant work. This was a taster for her full-day workshop two weeks later. We were also privileged to have Wendy Nutt from Australia show us her quilts and tell us her quilting story. Finally, we had another great Challenge reveal when members shared their interpretations of the West Horsley Place Challenge.
NOVEMBER – Deena had organised for us to hire the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters’ Guild Suitcase Collection. In groups, we each viewed and appraised many contemporary quilts. This proved to be a big hit with members.
DECEMBER – We rounded the year off by celebrating with a lunch at Denbies Vineyard in Dorking. Not only did we enjoy the chatter and food, we had a (quite hard!) quilt quiz and then went to explore the gallery space and exhibition with a view to holding our own exhibition there in the future (this has now been booked for January 2026).