A Lovely Day

On Saturday we held The Country Yard's Annual Exhibition.

We had sunshine.

We had music (The Red Arrows).

We had plenty to nibble on.

Even Petanque if you were in the mood....

We had Spot Prizes

We had a Viewers' Choice winning quilt. This was a Gail Pan's Bluebirds and Berries
with Suzanne's special touch added to it!
See more of it *here*

And we had quilts carefully scattered throughout the house. My photos do not do the Exhibition justice, nor did I photograph everything. I meant to come back to get more photos but didn't get the chance. The sale in the Shop kept us busy :-)

Several different projects in this room. The John Deere inspired quilt is all hand
pieced and quilted.
And that's one of Lynette Anderson's Chateau Hexagon mystery quilts at the window.

The Double Wedding Ring was gorgeous and one I wanted a
better photo of. The cat disappeared as soon as people started
arriving!

The quilt on the left is a Bonnie Hunter EZ Street. The one on the right is another
one which has been hand pieced and quilted.
Another Chateau Hexagon on the wall.

On the sofa we have a Barbara Brackman Grandmother's Choice quilt.
Antique Lace class quilt at front of photo.

Here are two more Antique Lace class quilts.
The table centre was also a class at the shop.

Our annual exhibiton is a lovely way to celebrate the year. It's a wonderful opportunity for our quilters to share and display their work.

There are several other posts about the exhibitions. Click *here* for Leeanne's blog and *here* for Suzanne's post.

Thank you for visiting and reading along!

Have a wonderful week

and happy creating!

Bits and Bobs

There's been a few different things going on since last time I posted; first of all, the mailmen have done their duty and delivered some postcards. Linda, of SCRAPMASTER blog and I took part in a swap organised by Sheila. I've taken part in these before and it is always fun to see what ideas everyone comes up with. The theme for this swap was Spring, which is something I'm not dreaming of right now - I'm appreciating the (slightly) cooler weather that comes with Autumn on this side of the world. (Besides, Spring for me means lots of newborn calves and work which I'm definitely not ready for yet!).
However I did really appreciate and love the card sent by Linda - isn't it lovely? Thank you Linda :-)

Linda has edged her card with a decorative machine stitch - I hadn't
thought of doing that.

And here is the one I sent to her —

The Whangarei Patchworkers and Quilters Guild had their biennial exhibition last weekend. This great example of quilt bombing greeted us as we entered the carpark!

Great advertising! Isn't it cool - apparently this cover was borrowed from
another guild.
Thanks to Leeanne of Quiltmekiwi for sharing this photo with me :-)

I went along for a day as part of the The Country Yard - we had a booth set up so I didn't get to have a huge look at all the quilts. However there are the ones that were opposite our booth - a nice variety to gaze at in the quiet moments!

I just took the one photo of the rest of the quilts - this is the one I would have voted for viewer's choice if I'd been able to.

Flower Garden By Jeannette Monaghan.
Quilted by John Nielsen.
A Piece of Cake design.

Photos from the exhibition have been popping up on other local blogs this week. Here are some links if you would like to see what Northland, New Zealand quilters get up to —
Leeann from Quilt Whangarei (several posts)
Leeanne from quiltmekiwi
Ms Lottie from theslightlymadquiltlady
Susan from Kamo Lady

Many of you will know I love trying out new things. I've been spending my evenings this week stitching these leaves —

They are so cool to do, an adaptation of doing buttonhole stitch in a
circle.

I found the tutorial here on Karen's faeriesandfibres blog. This is a relatively new blog to me and it is so full of interesting quilty-ness and crafty-ness that I am enjoying my visits there.
Karen is currently celebrating her first blog anniversary - click here if you'd like to know more and would like to go in the draw for some fabulous prizes.
(Now you mustn't ask me about the new project I seem to be working on in the above photo, although if you visit Karen's blog, I'm sure you'll get some idea... I'm working on the premise that if I don't talk about it in blogland, it doesn't exist...gulp!!)

Ok, time to get off the computer and plant this rose bush I bought the other day :-)
Happy stitching and thank you for visiting,

Doggone - a finish

A little while ago I ran a series of 'skills' classes at my favourite quilt shop, The Country Yard. The classes covered stitchery, turned under (needleturn) appliqué, foundation paper piecing and english paper piecing.
Some participants came to all the classes and some just one or two. I devised the project/design below for them to do at home, if they wished to, to practise the skills we covered in class.

My project sat unfinished for a while - firstly, so that the class participants could look at the back of my work to see how I had done something, and then secondly, because I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to finish it!
I finally decided it would make a perfect cushion, so being inspired, I forged ahead and got sewing. I challenged myself to have some skills practise of my own and had a play with my free motion quilting.

I added some texture to the border and tried to highlight the 
lovely round scallops. 
(English paper piecing class)

Dimension added to the centre panel with the sunflowers
(See how well the variegated thread worked on the centre of the sunflowers?)

The dog might be gone, but he left his bones behind!
I tried to balance the quilting after the 'heavy' border work with meandering
in the flying geese  border (foundation piecing class).

I used subtle quilting so my wonky stitches wouldn't show too much, and so as not to overshadow the initial class work. (Beige and white Mettler Seralene (120 wght) thread).
All in all nothing too earth shattering but a fun thing to do. Lots of practise playing and 'designing'. Nice to see that  practise does help my fmq skills and confidence grow!!

Edges bound and finished as if it were a quilt. I wanted the edging to frame the piece.
Just need to find a 20" inner now.

I played around with fabric for the back. (Having fun)

 At the recent Country Yard exhibition, I was delighted to see these three finished projects from the classes, all made into cushions.

Jan's Cushion

Barbara's one. She also made a second cushion using a slightly different centre block.
 Barb is very good at using up her scraps - these are leftovers
from her beginner's quilt classes last year!

Liz made hers into a cushion cover, also.

A nice display.

It's great to have another project ticked off my list of to-finish projects! (Maybe I can start something new now?....he he just kidding!!)
Have a lovely week everyone,
Happy creating,

A NZ flavour

At the Festival of Quilts last week there were some quilts displayed that had a real New Zealand flavour. I thought you may like to see some of the ways our country is interpreted in quilts. There were some real beauties (and I didn't get photos of them all).

Incredible details

3-D work - look at the edging on the cloth

There were lots of birds on display.

Our Kiwi put in an appearance. Again very 3-D with the lichen and the feathers.

A Tui in a Kowhai tree.

Capturing the Kowhai flowers beautifully.

More NZ birds in a variety of trees.

The Kereru in a Puriri Tree. The wood pigeons love these berries.

The Pukeko and Pohutakawa flowers.
Sorry, I don't know the name of this particular Maori design.

The Tui is in a Flax bush this time. Lovely nectar in these flowers.

O golly - beautiful!

A really common sight at Christmas time
- the NZ Christmas tree, Pohutakawa

A lovely NZ scene.

 Hope you've enjoyed this little gallery - I'm in awe of the talented people who produce such beautiful work :-)

So inspiring...!

Yes, I know I should be catching up and keeping up but I just wanted to tell you about the fabulous day I had yesterday!! Some lovely friends and I drove down to Auckland for the Auckland Guild's annual quilt show. In the past it was called Calico Christmas but it has been renamed "Auckland Festival of Quilts" and golly it really was a festival of quilts.
(Warning - quite a few photos but I have reduced their size so I hope this hasn't taken too long to load!)
This was the Best of Show Quilt. Stunning.

Phantasia by Ansa Breytenbach

Look at this edging!!

Just lovely.

Below is another of this lady's quilts - she showed 3 altogether and all were exquisite in their design, detail and execution. I seem to remember she won Best of Show last year as well.

Rose Feather by Ansa Breytenbach.

All her quilting is done on a domestic sewing machine.

As I look back on my photos I see that I took them of quilts that had interesting (to me) features; a technique or design. Some I just zoomed in on the quilting and took a photo of that. I started to take note of who made which quilt but couldn't keep it up. [If any of the 'locals' see one they would like credit for, please email me].
I didn't necessarily take photos of my absolute favourites. I hope you enjoy a bit of a browse through these. (There were over 250 quilts so my photos really are a drop in the bucket!)

The judges usually have a small display of some of their work,
of which this was one.....

...A close up of the same wall hanging reveals how it was made.

"Graffitti'. Another one that intrigued me...
See close up below.

All the bricks are appliquéd on.

Yes, I loved the colours - but also love the quilting.
Apart from the cream background, there was only one fabric used in this quilt.

Very vibrant.....

...and look at this detail. Luxurious! 

Another beauty....

...see the chain stitch embroidered down the feather spines.

This is one of the Elm Creek quilts.
 (Is it Sylvia's wedding quilt?). 

This was one of the few primitive style quilts with felt applique.
Beautifully done.

A number of quilts were embellished with small beads.

On this large-ish quilt every intersection of the cross hatching (more than
are shown in this photo) had a bead stitched onto it!!

As you came down the stairs towards the exit, was this display of challenge quilts. Participants had to use either turquoise, orange or purple fabrics with black or white for their entry.

The colours made for an eye catching display.

I have lots more photos but won't take up more of your day (or mine) just now. I hope you've enjoyed a look at my fascinating time at the Festival of Quilts.
[I've just noticed Leeann was there yesterday as well. Go to her blog to see a few more photos.]
If you would like to help out some of those who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, you could go and visit Erin at vesuviusmama and offer to make a block or two :-)