Creative Stitches

ELF Attends Creative Stitches 2011

ELF is delighted to have been invited back to the creative stitches exhibition at Westpoint, Exeter for the 10^th consecutive year. The exhibition runs from 22^nd to 25^th September and ELF will be in its usual place at stand ZA23.

Due to popular demand, visitors will be able to view and win a brilliantly crafted Mennonite Quilt. The stunning Mennonite, named “Mariner’s Compass”, is the top prize in this years ELF craft draw. In addition to the quilt there will be a number of other prizes up for grabs, including an original textile work kindly donated by local artist Lesley Hopkinson. Tickets cost 50p and can be bought at the show or purchased at the ELF office from 1^st September. 

Sarah Shaw, ELF Fundraising & Communications Manager, comments; “This is one of the charity’s major events of the year. Our stand is always popular with visitors admiring the wonderful craftwork and skill which has created the quilt and having the opportunity to win it along with other rizes. Along with the ELF supporters I am looking forward to the event.”

The quilt is made by the Mennonite ladies from Ontario, Canada. The Mennonite and Amish communities are known as the “Plain People”. They decended from the Anabaptists, radical Protestant reformers who fled Europe in the mid eighteenth century to avoid religious persecution. The more conservative congregation of the Mennonite Church remian to this day as insular groups rejecting modern technology in favour of a simple and unadorned life which remins similar to 300 years ago. The traditional handmade quilts take over 3 months to make from design to completion and are sold to supplement their living which is predominately made from farming the land using practces from the seventeenth century.