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,

Finishing bits and pieces

Some heavy rain over the weekend granted me my wish of a quiet, inside, sew-day. I had a few bits and pieces I really needed to finish up.

I had got to the binding stage of a wall hanging by The Birdhouse which I started and shared a couple of posts ago. 

I made a couple of corner triangles to insert a dowel for hanging, and then machine sewed the binding down.

Santa's Workshop by The Birdhouse

I know some people don't worry too much about quilting these little hangings but I like the finish that a little bit of quilting gives. The photo doesn't show it well but I used the walking foot to stitching in the ditch of the border seams and a couple of straight lines in the outside border.

Then I used the hopping foot to quilt around the outside of the stitchery.

Next on the agenda for the day was to complete a wee bag using this stitchery —

Some straight forward sewing and the bag was complete —

Alphabet Birds by Fig N Berry

Finally, I made the finishing touches to my Bear quilt. I shared copious amounts of photos of this in my last post. I machine sewed the binding on —

I also remembered to include a corner triangle (in the pink) to use as my label. The photo below also shows the scrappy backing. It's all brushed cotton, which I like to use for my young people quilts.

The background fabric I used is a light pink grunge - I'm really happy with how well it worked. 

I've seen other people share fun photos showing the threads they used. I'm pleased I have a 'comprehensive' collection of Aurifil - being able to match the threads well helps to hide the wonky stitches!!!

The quilt pattern is from Sew Fresh Quilts.

So that was a pretty good sew-day!

Since then, I have completed one more project. It's a small pouch for storing threads in —

Country Garden by Marg Low Designs.

It was nice to finally have three finishes for OPAM (the final pouch is a November finish). Although with all my galivanting about this month, I have only made 10 blocks for the 350 block project - and that includes the three stitcheries I've shown above! Swings and Roundabouts.

The flurry of wee finishes is just in time - they are samples to showcase patterns for The Country Yard. Today we are packing up the shop and going down to Auckland for Festival of Quilts. This is the first time this has been held for a couple of years so it will be nice to be there! I'm looking forward to being there and seeing everything :-)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Binding time

Once again I can't believe how quickly the days have gone by since my last post! It feels like not a lot has been happening in The Palace, BUT something has happened, and that something is some quilting!

I recently came across a linky party for Free Motion Mavericks and WOW! that is exactly how I feel about the quilting I have done on the Bears quilt for my great-niece. Very maverick-ic, if that is a word!

When I was piecing the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

"Quicker and all that is necessary on a child's quilt."

When I was basting the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

However once I sat down, the bears told me they needed proper faces —

The Bear Paw blocks told me they wanted a bit of fanciness and to look like claws —

And then I decided a feather fill would be perfect for this quilt.

I think I've broken every feather rule in the quilting world. I have small feathers, large feathers, long feathers, short feathers, wonky feathers, beautiful feathers, all side-by-side.

And to add insult to injury, I have small spirals, large spirals, spikey spirals, loopy spirals —

And because the border fabric is busy, I just did a diagonal checkerboard there  - I did try to measure to get it all even but didn't get it quite right; however it's barely visible and a wee lass won't be bothered by it!

Binding will happen over the next few days and then I will have a long awaited finish!

Thank you to Andree at Quilting and Learning -What a combo! for encouraging me to join the linky. If you want to see other Maverick Free Motion Quilting, or join in just go *here*.

And binding of a different type. Over the weekend we attended the wedding of one of ED's best friends. ED was in the bridal party, and YD and  I travelled down south (to the Waikato) together for it.

It was a great 36 hours away; the wedding was held at an Alpaca Farm which added an extra bit of fun and personality to the proceedings! 

We were told by one official-type person that we were allowed in with the Alpacas, but were quickly shooed out by another!

The bride's family and ours (well, me and my girls) spent a lot of time together when they were teenagers. The girls attended a lot of horse competitions so we travelled together, camped together and the girls rode together. Here are the girls with their 'other mummies' —

(YD in the red and ED on the right.) (The bride in her Dancing Dress!)

Such a fun night. I'm slowly catching up on my sleep (!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,