More Quilty Goodness

The Auckland Quilt Guild held their annual Festival Of Quilts recently (I'm losing track of the weekends!). 

The Country Yard (where I work one-day-a-week (usually)) was a vendor so we packed up the shop and off we went!

What to take, how many to take and can we squeeze in one more project to sew, kit and sell are all BIG questions in the lead up to the event. Keeping in mind that we had our big birthday weekend very recently (*last post*), I think we did well just getting there!!

By Thursday afternoon we were mostly set up —

(just some labels and a few more last minute bits and pieces to go).

(You can see my recently completed Cross and Crown quilt hanging there, in the reds/pinks.)

The festival committee used a different layout this year. The vendors were all around the outside walls of the Auckland Netball Centre, and the quilts and displays were set up in the centre. I really liked this layout - previously the vendors were all bunched together in one area. This flowed lots better.

We were busy on our stand (yaay) but of course that means I didn't get to see as much of the exhibition as I would have liked. 

Lucky for us, this was our view from our stand. I loved the heart quilt!

This quilt was by Susan Boucher. She used Jen Kingwell's Boho Heart pattern and used her own heart and flower designs in the interior to suit the fabrics she had chosen.

I popped over for a closer look in a quiet time, and I've since realised that I barely took many photos of all the other quilts. Permission was given to take photos, as long as the maker was acknowledged on social media. The odd photo I took didn't have the correct details!

A couple of other views of the Stadium —

Best of Show. The Colour of War by Norma Slabbert. 

Best Amateur Quilt. A Walk in the Woods by Isobel McFall. Particularly effective when you stood back a little.

I'm not quite sure why it was decided to drape the winners' sashes over the quilts like that - they were quite distracting!

Aotearoa Quilters had a few exhibitions. This is their Red challenge; every year it's a different colour.

There were plenty of clever pieces. Here are just two of them. Was it because Dame Whina Cooper was such a respected lady that images of her strike a chord? This was a  well executed piece by Catherine Parkinson—

The Monarch, by Sandie Sixtus.

Another of the special exhibitions at the show was this one, showcasing Tivaevae. These are gloriously coloured applique quilts made in the Cook Islands.

(The second photo is borrowed from the Auckland Quilt Guild FB page.)

I did a little bit of sewing before we headed south to the quilt show, and made these wee pincushions. They are all based on Gail Pan designs —

The green/churn dash one was filled with fibre fill and the other two were filled with walnut shell.

Before I made those, though, I finished a Christmas quilt. The Santa, The Tree, The Turkey and Me was a top that had been sitting around for a while. It was a sample for a BOM at the shop. We decided to run it again as it was very popular. But better to have it displayed as a finished quilt!!

I needed to change the foot on my machine. This big plastic one curves up which means it doesn't get caught on the three dimensional wool felt pieces.

And back to the standard foot for the outer border. I mostly just outlined the applique and stitchery and did this ribbon thing around the outside edge. 

Hanging at the show (the light was wrong for a decent shot) —

And now hanging at the shop —

While the show ran over three days, I was at the show for just two of them. It was a busy old time, but I enjoyed it. 

So there we have it - a bit of a peek at the show, and a bit of  peek at what I've been sewing.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn.

Festival of Quilts 2022

The Auckland Quilt Guild held it's 'annual' show, Festival of Quilts, last weekend. I say 'annual' but this is the first time it's been held since 2019!

In 2019 they hosted Symposium instead of running the show, and then of course there were two years of cancellations due to Covid.

So it was great to go back!

The Country Yard had a stand there - we set up on Thursday night - and the show ran Fri-Sat-Sun.

Before the doors opened, I popped upstairs to get our team some coffees —

I'm not sure how the figures tally up, but there seemed to be heaps of people in attendance over the three days. For the most part we were kept busy on our stand, and I didn't get as good a look at the quilts as I would have liked.

So I didn't capture all of my favourites but took a range of photos for a variety of reasons.

This whole cloth quilt was Best Of Show —

"Perseverance" by Jocelyn Atkinson
Her artist's statement said she used the cut away batting technique and then coloured batting to create the shadow effect. 

I found the colour within the quilt to be very effective, not to mention the beautiful quilting!

I was pleased to see that Australian and New Zealand designers were well represented at the show. Ngaire Brooks (NZ), Irene Blanck, Jen Kingwell, Rachel Daisy, Wendy Williams - and probably more I haven't noted.

This quilt caught my eye because it's the sort of quilt I thought I'd like to make - one day...... - a NZ themed Baltimore — 

"My Family Baltimore Album Quilt" by Susan Wade

(Designer Ngaire Brooks)

The quilt below tickled my fancy - for reasons explained in the Artist's Statement. Seeing the Candlewick bedspreads she used was a moment of nostalgia for me! —

"Not my Grandmother's Bedspread" by Heather Bassett

Such fun!

A few of the ladies in Chooky's zoom group are making Lucy Boston's quilt, so I had to take this photo for them —

"All the Blues" by Joy Hill

"Folk Flowers" by Tish Brindle

The one below is an original design and I really liked the way the maker used pieced blocks in the black/grey parts of the star. Making 'blended fabric' she called it —

"Starlight Starbright"  by Susan Boucher

This is a pattern I've had on my wishlist for a while; a Jen Kingwell design.

"Green Tea and Sweet Beans Revisited" by Jean Ramsay

(Designer Jen Kingwell)

"Pinball Wizard" by Sue Flego.

"Chambray Flowers" by Rebecca Bishop

(Designer Irene Blanck)

"Pretty Little Pots" by Tish Brindle

(Designer Wendy WIlliams)

This was a BOW I bought a couple of years ago; I wasn't sure where to start with it so maybe I should just make a start!!!

This was a fun concept. There were two of these quilts, after a class by Rachel Daisy. Old jean pockets formed the direction of this quilt —

"Wild Garden" by Rebecca Bishop

(Designer Rachel Daisy)

Every year the Aotearoa Quilters group holds a colour challenge which travels the country. The current one is 'Brown' which was surprisingly colourful! 

I didn't take many photos but here are two of the quilts —

"Whakairo" by Gabriella Haill (top) and

"Faded Glory" by Mary Metcalf 

OK, so I'd better sign off. I hope you've enjoyed this little look at the show. Normally I would link up to other bloggers who visited it but I haven't seen many write ups by the NZ bloggers I follow, yet. 

Linda of Kokaquilts has a write-up *here*. It's always interesting to see what grabs different people's attention.

There were a few more pictures on the Kiwiquilters page on Facebook, if you're a member of that group.

It's been wet and wild overnight. Some of the roads are flooded but I should get to work ok. But now I'll go feed calves and check out the damage on the farm!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Auckland Festival of Quilts

Last weekend I left my calves in the trustworthy hands of my son-in-law and went down to Auckland for this year's Festival of Quilts.(Golly, it was nearly 2 weeks ago now!)
The Country Yard had a stand there again this year.....I worked at the shop on Thursday and by the time I got down to Auckland (with more supplies) Kerryn and Bernice had done a marvellous job of setting up our stand.

Friday morning - time for a quick team photo before I went off to play....

I met up with Linda and Julie and spent a lovely few hours in their company. Quilts and shopping. Fun :-)

On Saturday I worked on our stand and that was a good day too. Home that night, tired but full of quilty inspiration:-)

The photos are in no particular order and I apologise in advance if there are too many and that they're not all square, etc etc —
I actually thought this quilt was Best of Show, but discovered a day later it was Amateur Best of Show, rather than the penultimate.

Whilst the Hand Heals by Jenni Scott.
Using Yoko Saito's Traditional Pattern Lessons.
A lot of this quilt was completed while the maker had her wrist in plaster.

Who Am I to argue with the judges, but I didn't actually take a photo of the Best of Show.

I follow Esther Aliu's blog; she designs beautiful quilts which are always works of art. I started one years ago and didn't get very far but would love to finish it someday before starting another of her's.
Her designs often win awards, all around the world. Here are two by Jenny Henry —

Secret Garden

Red Delicious

It seemed that this year there were quite a few quilts in surprise fabrics (to me, at least). For example, below is a Dear Jane quilt in Kaffe Fasset fabrics. Quite a different look and quite pretty.

Dear Jane, by Margaret Reid.

Wendy Williams seems to be a popular Australlian designer here in New Zealand; there were a few of her quilts. 

Around the Garden by Rebecca Bishop

Sonya Prchal makes beautiful painted and then thread painted quilts. Her Cats is no exception.

Cats by Sonya Prchal

I was pleased to see a Foxley Village, designed by Natalie Bird. This was a BOM in last year's Australian Homespun magazine. The original was in Tilda fabrics, not sure what was used here. I've collected the patterns and fabrics for this and is another on my to-do list.

Foxley Village by Mary Metcalf.
There was no hand stitching in this version.

It was fun to see the Birds of a Feather quilt by Tish Brindle. I've often looked at these birds and thought I'd like to make some. They'd make a good swap or scrap challenge block.

Here are a few with a New Zealand flavour.

A truly unique Eye-spy by Ku Bailey

Neighbours by Dianne Dowd. NZ and Australian birds.
Helen Godden class using Lumiere paints and free motion quilting

Year of the Kiwi by Kathy Ronson.
Southern Hemisphere activities!

One of the more traditional looking quilts.

Little pieces of Yesteryear by Colleen Burr.

This hasn't photographed very well so I've shown a close-up photo too.

Bluebirds by Tracey Roberts

As usual, plenty of lovely quilting to look at —

Churn and Dash again by Judi Schon

Sue Flego's Just for Fun.
Her interpretation of a Sarah Fielke design

High Rise City.
Anne Joule makes beautiful EPP quilts from tie off-cuts. Most years she has
another one to exhibit.

This has got quite long!! But if you want to see even more quilts, pop over to Julie's post about the show.

Charlotte has also written about it in three interesting posts.

If you want to see what Linda bought - oh la la - head over *here* and *here*- it was exciting to be with her when she found this treasure :-)

Well done if you've got to the end! I hope you've enjoyed seeing the quilts.

Till next time, 

happy stitches