Loads of quilts - part 1!

As promised some photos of the exhibition.....

The winner of Territory Quilts 2013 was Chris Knights with her quilt "When I am feeling blue - I quilt!" A lovely quilt with lots of details, and unfortunately a blurry photo...grrr hate it when that happens.

A more detailed shots of the lovely appliqué and beautiful stippling.

There was over a 100 entries in the exhibition obviously I can't show them all, so I decided to share photos from the friendship group "The Bay Babe's" that I am a part of....firstly let me introduce you to Doreen...

"Special Reminder" 180 x 180cm Doreen loves using aboriginal fabrics and earthy colours.

The owl fabric was printed in the Northern Territory at Nomad art.

"A Long Way" 197 cm x 182cm, fabric was purchased in Intercourse, Pennsylvania U.S.A and looks great in this Cherry House design "City Tracks"

"St Columbia Falls in March" 56.5 x56.5, started in Lisa Walton workshop that explored fabric painting, foil rubbing, and beading....wish I had taken a better close up so you could see the lovely quilting....This quilt was a winner in the Art Category

Now meet Annie...."Spring Time in Tuscany" 252 x 252 cm

.....check out Annie's minature Japanese Girls this is 33 x 32.5 ( approx. 12" square) !

Introducing Mary...."Toddler's Trail" 164 x 133 cm....Mary found these hexagons at the op shop.....when I go to second hand shops I never seem to find the good stuff! Mary's quilt won "Best Use of Colour"

"Inca Rheas, Patagonian Prancer" 45 x 45cm, a batik souvenir purchased in Southern Argentina, embellished with free motion quilting and Lumiere fabric paint.

Introducing Shelley....some of the ladies in the group have been having a lot of fun with organic dying, when we get together there is usually a hot pot on the go, full of one or more of the following... rusty anything, onion skins, purple carrots, native plants leaves and flowers....and who ever wants to dye throws in their silks. Shelley's quilt is made from hand dyed fabrics, and is embellished with gold machine embroidery....the black background is also silk...very lovely.

"Rivers of Gold" 225 x 225 cm

"Oriental Dreams" Miniature 49 x 37 cm

Now, I do have more to show...so I will be back in a night or two with some more....but as you can everyone is doing some different, and we all like lots of colour !

Can you believe it!

On Thursday night I attended the Darwin Patchworkers and Quilters Exhibition opening....and guess what? My Peppermint Sparkle (pattern from Applique Outside the Lines - Piece O' Cake Designs) won a Highly Commended prize...

...quite surprised, but very happy....especially since it languished in the cupboard unquilted for a couple of years....just goes to show what can happen when you dust off those UFO's!

Speaking of UFO's....after Mum and I saw the V&A exhibition, Mum decided she really needed to finish this quilt....it only needed the binding...the pattern for this quilt is in Kaffe Fassett's V&A Quilts. This quilt is huge, 109" x 110".

And guess whose bed that goes on? Yes, that's right, me! Wooot woot.

My other entry in the exhibition was my Bonnie Hunter Scrappy Trip (find pattern here), which people were quite interested in...mainly because all those colours pack a  punch.

Mum's second quilt in the exhibition...a pattern from Flying Fish Kits....I really love all those japanese naomi fabrics...

And aren't these 1/2 hexagon so sweet....Mum is very nifty with the needle and especially with appliqué....so she is able to whip through binding like butter...I think she got 18 metres of binding (two quilts) done in less than a week!

I have more photos to share, but the house is waking up, so I think I might go an make brekky for everyone....scrambled eggs with chives might the order of the morning :)

Since we last spoke.....

Since we last spoke....

I have packed up two quilts for the 2013 Darwin Quilters Exhibition...this weekend!!

Done loads of hours quilting and binding....I also discovered a new form of RSI, which I am calling "Quilter's Leg" which is what you get when you sew with your foot on that pedal for 8 hours straight.

Been to the Hunter Valley in New South Wales and stayed in an awesome "French Villa" and drank way too much champagne, and ate way too much food.

Found a yarn bombed tree....I love this sort of public art...

...maybe I should knit up a couple of these for my palm trees :)

Hubby had a birthday....

...and my frangipanni tree grown from a friend's cutting has flowered for the first time.

So Darwin Patchworkers and Quilter's exhibition opening is tomorrow night....woo hoo....cant wait to see what everyone has been doing....and cant wait to get back to Mrs Billings, and what other project takes my fancy....wooo hooo :)

And if you are in Darwin this weekend head on down to Stokes Hill Wharf, and the exhibition is open for viewing from 10am Friday to 4pm Sunday.

Quilting delay :(

In my last post I posed the question whether to quilt my lovely bluebirds quilt...

After much consideration, and I even purchased 8 yards of this yummy fabric...Kaffe Fasset Asian Circles.

I decided to NOT quilt, even now as I am typing I feel disappointed that this lovely quilt top is not going to be quilted yet, but I am going to quilt some smaller quilts to enter in the exhibition in September, and once that is past I will consider if I am ready to to do the big quilt....well I have one less barrier now...I have the backing!

So what have I been up to?

Well I tidied up my sewing room...I had so much STUFF out it was impossible to even think, let alone sew! This is my room tidy :)

I have started quilting a top.....remember this quilt...from the Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins book Applique Outside the Lines with Piece O'Cake Designs.

Well it's going to be quilted soon.....I have made a good start...

And after my oh no moment with Mrs Billings in April I have fixed up my strippy borders and got my diamond border on....

And another border since these photos were taken....all hand sewing of course...

Last, but not least, Mum and I did a two day "workshop" with Karen Styles, which included a tour Karen organised of the Victoria and Albert Quilts from London, which are currently on display at the Queensland Art Gallery, so apart from the fab quilts from the V&A (more on that shortly), we got to see alot of the quilts from Somerset Patchwork and the Mrs Billings quilt again, and it was great to see what the other ladies on the tour were working on.

Our visit to the Queensland Art Gallery to see the quilts that are tour from the Victoria and Albert Museum was fabulous.....really fabulous, if you are in Brisbane between now September you MUST go....for something to whet your appetite on these quilts, check out this link, the Art Gallery has provided short videos on eleven on the quilts, describing the history of the quilts and provided close up photos....the clam shell bed hangings are amazing :)

If you have a look at the videos, remember that most of the work is whip stitched, even the most intricate appliqué....quite fascinating.

Too quilt or not....

Too quilt or not, that is the question....I can't believe we are almost half way through the year. Darwin Patchworker's and Quilters are having their bi-annual exhibition in thirteen weeks...twelve weeks until quilts have to be completed and dropped.

So the question is which quilt shall I quilt? Don't ask me why I haven't started quilting anything!

Do I have time to quilt a king size quilt? I suspect no, not with working, and I have a couple of weekends away, but it is killing me that I have had this quilt top finished for THREE years and it is still not quilted.

The pattern for this quilt is from Material Obsession Two by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke, called Bluebirds and Happiness.

But is so big....

So very big....102" square...

But soo pretty :)

Am I prepared to go to quilting jail for 3 months and not work on anything else? Mmmm, I need to think about this a bit more!

Flower Garden

For some time I have been wanting to do Kim McLeans' Flower Garden, this quilt is all done by hand, but always felt that I wouldn't  ever have the time or the skill to undertake such a massive project, the time factor is particular relevant now I am working on the Mrs Billings quilt!

But a little while ago I spotted this version of the quilt, without the amazing border, and started to think about ways to do the appliqué by machine, all of a sudden the project started to become a lot more achievable.

So I already had a bunch of great backgrounds in blues and green, both Kaffe Shot Cottons, and cottons by Reece Scannell...

and, of course, a lot of Kaffe et co yardage in the stash cupboard, so I took the plunge and made up a some blocks, using a raw edge appliqué technique incorporating Visoflex (a brand of fusible webbing)  and a tiny zig zag stitch.

It has been quite fun making up the blocks, because you get the "instant gratification" of ironing on the pieces and seeing the block come to together before you do any sewing!

So whilst I was at Mt Bundy on the three day retreat, I spent a day doing the zig zaging on some of the blocks.....

...still got a way to go, but the important thing is a start has been made.

It doesn't take long before it grows into something exciting :)

I am still thinking about how big the final quilt will be, and what I will do about the sashing, but I am loving the look of the shot cottons together, and how the Kaffe et co fabrics jump out!

If you love this pattern, pop over to Glorious Appliqué blog, and the aussie version, to see quilters posting about their work in progress on a variety of Kim McLean projects, so much inspiration :)

Great Retreat :)

For the last couple of years, (last year's post) I have gone down to Mt Bundy for a three day retreat with the local guild, Darwin Patchworkers and Quilters....this year was no different....twenty plus of us sewed day and night....there was plenty of laughs....lots of sewing and lots of eating, and plenty of "rural action".

I decided that I would take projects that were already cut as I have a sore shoulder....too much rotary cutting I suspect. These lovely Amy Butler's had been sat in the cupboard cut up ready to be sewn together for about two years....so they got an airing....

Now there is  42 12.5" blocks, and I realised that I hadn't brought the sashing (sigh), it's going to be a queen size quilt, so I packed up the blocks and started on the next project. Anyone who has been to a retreat knows that you need to take more than one project!

Remember these blocks from an earlier post? For the uninitiated this is a free pattern on the Anna Marie Horner website.

Well nine more were sewn up....till they looked like this...do you like my improv design wall?

....then some playing around happened....and they looked this.

Quite a pretty little quilt...maybe for a baby girl?

This Anna Marie Horner Field Study Range is so gorgeous :) lucky I have some scraps left...maybe I will use them for a border?

So after finishing this quilt top, I got out my THIRD project....but I will save that for the next post :)