Suffrage in Stitches

Do you know that New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote?

Left panel made by my mum, right panel made by me

You can read all about the history of how NZ women earned the right to vote in 1893 here: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage

A couple of extracts:

• In most other democracies – including Britain and the United States – women did not win the right to the vote until after the First World War. 

• This achievement was the result of years of effort by suffrage campaigners, led by Kate Sheppard. In 1891, 1892 and 1893 they compiled a series of massive petitions calling on Parliament to grant the vote to women.

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Women's Suffrage in 2018, Vinnies Resew started a project to "recreate the suffrage petition through fabric, stories and conversations. With the help of 546 individual New Zealand makers and a lot of recycled textiles, Vinnies Re Sew will be creating an extraordinary textile work reflecting the physical size of the original suffrage petition and celebrating it through stitching the lives of the woman petitioners of 1893 and beyond".

After Caroline O'Reilly from Vinnies Resew came and spoke at our quilt guild last month, I decided to see if any of my ancestors had signed the suffrage petition. It's very easy to find out because it's all been digitised and there's a search function here: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/petition

I entered some of my ancestors names, and found that my great grandmother had signed the petition:

Mrs Jos Abernethy - https://nzhistory.govt.nz/suffragist/mrs-jos-abernethy

So, even though many of the panels were already finished, I offered to make one for my great grandmother.  And my mum offered to make one for my great grand mother's sister in law - Mary Sarah Crawford Abernethy.

You'll notice that my great grandmother was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1868. There were only about 20,000 people living in Dunedin then.  Many of the women who signed the petition were born in Scotland or England and emigrated to New Zealand before 1893.  

My great grandmother was married for 58 years and lived to be 95 years old.  She died before I was born, but my dad remembers her well.  My mum and dad have this wonderful silver epergne (an ornamental centrepiece for a dining table, typically used for holding fruit or flowers) that was presented to my great grandparents on their 25th wedding anniversary.  

These Suffrage in Stitches panels are going to be exhibited at Wellington Museum (not Te Papa) during August 2019.  It feels great to have been part of this historical event and I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibition.  

Each panel is 8 1/2" x 21 3/4" = 21.5cm x 55.5cm to equal the size of the sheets of paper in the petition. 

The Peacock Party and a touch of Kaffe

It feels like it's been a very short week here.

We had public holidays for Good Friday 19 April and Easter Monday 22 April.  And then on Thursday 25 April it was another public holiday for ANZAC Day, where we honour the Australians and New Zealanders who have fought for our countries.

So there's only been 3 work days this week, and it's also school and university holidays, so my university student has been back home this week.  Fortunately the good weather has returned and it feels like one final reminder of summer today, before we get ready for winter.

I'm still plodding away on my Kaffe Fassett scarf in Rowan wool.  I've found I can't do it at nights, because the arms on my arm chair are too close to accommodate my knitting style! Therefore I'm trying to add a few rows each day while I sit on the sofa. 

On the quilting front I'm adding a few green blocks to my Shuttles quilts from Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.

I've started playing a little game with myself where I try to guess from the link photo who wrote the post.  Sometimes I get it right, but sometimes I'm surprised,  I'm trying to visit at least 5 of the links every week. I do appreciate everyone who links up, but I just don't have time to visit every link and also answer comments on my blog.  I hope you understand.

So what's everyone been up to?  Feel free to link up below and share what you've been up to:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory - Chapter 2

A few weeks ago I received a lovely message from Anna Maria Horner asking if I'd like to make a quilt to help promote her newest fabric line - Conservatory Chapter 2.

Of course I said "Yes please".  In fact I was in so much of a rush to say yes, I didn't even open the attachment to see what she would like me to make.

When I did remember about the attachment, I opened it to see a photo of this wonderful Portraits Quilt. I had to quickly send a second email back to gush about the beauty of the quilt, and how it would suit me perfectly.  Anna Maria said that she chose this pattern for me because she thought it would fit my style! How good is that!

The fabrics arrived yesterday and I had fun opening the parcel and studying each fabric in depth.  If you're on Instagram you can see my live unboxing in my stories - it will still be up for a few more hours yet. If you're on a computer you can click this link and then click on my profile photo to see some videos. https://www.instagram.com/wendysquiltsandmore/

Anna Maria Horner has joined forces with two other designers to create Chapter 2 of Conservatory.  The three fabric lines are:
Second Nature by Anna Maria Horner
Long Distance by  Courtenay Cerutti.
Souvenir by Nathalie Lete

You can read more about the designers and their collections on the Free Spirit website.
The Portrait Quilts that I will be making ties together all three of the collections.

The Chapter 2 fabrics from the Conservatory line will be arriving in shops in USA in May.  Those of us in far flung places will have to wait a few more months, but Free Spirit certainly aim to have them in shops in New Zealand before Anna Maria Horner arrives for her tour of NZ in November.

If you're close to a quilt shop hosting a lecture or class with Anna Maria Horner I strongly recommend that you go.  You might not have made anything from her fabrics to date, but Anna Maria is first and foremost an artist, and that shines through in her use of pattern and colour.  Her lectures and classes are sure to be inspiring.

Here's a list of where Anna Maria Horner will be teaching in NZ.

Hosted by Fabco, Anna Maria will be teaching and lecturing around New Zealand for the first time. Contact the following shops to book your time with her!
November 19-20 - All Things Patchwork, Auckland
November 21- Cottage Flair, Rotorua
November 22-23- Donna’s Quilt Studio, Hamilton
November 25-26- Busy Bee, Wellington
November 27-28- Quilter’s Lane, Masterton
November 29-30- Quilting Shed, Oamaru

Glitter - and the Peacock Party

Some of you will remember my Glitter quilt.

It's a pattern designed by Jen Kingwell from Amitie Textiles in Australia.  I took the Glitter class with Jen at our Christchurch Symposium in October 2017, and I promised Jen I'd have the quilt finished before the next Symposium in Auckland in October 2019.

I finished hand piecing all the blocks before Christmas 2018, but as at 1 April I hadn't started joining them up yet.  You might think that's a 5 minute job, but I want to hand piece them together too.  I know some people have hand pieced the blocks and machine pieced the rows, but I quite enjoy the hand piecing and find it does give greater control when matching points and corners.

My motivation for starting to join the blocks was the announcement that Jen is launching a new Block of the Month called Dear Jen.  The beauty of this one is that the patterns will be send as PDFs via email - so no extra shipping charges for those of us outside of Australia.  Of course that sounding tempting, so I sewed 2 blocks of my Glitter quilt together, and signed up for the Dear Jen Block of the Month. (not sponsored at all - just sharing the love.)

I got two whole rows together and then wondered about how to press the seams.  Jen had shown us how to turn the seams and press hand pieced blocks, but that wasn't going to work when the blocks met each other.  The kind people in the Jen Kingwell Designs Facebook group told me to press one row one way, and the next row the opposite way.  I did that and it worked a treat.

Just 6 more rows to go now.  152 blocks in total.  Gulp!

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent post - where it's sewing or a trip away, we all like to see what other people have been up to.  Thanks for joining in.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

"Quilts with an Angle" by Sheila Christensen - plus a giveaway

Hello, and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Sheila Christensen's new book - Quilts with an Angle, published by C and T Publishing.
Keep reading to the end because one lucky reader is going to win an electronic copy of Sheila's book!

I was excited when Sheila told me she was going to write a book.  We share a love of Kaffe Fassett, Tula Pink, Anna Maria Horner and Alison Glass fabrics (all the bright ones) so I knew Sheila's book would be colourful.

Sheila asked me to test one of the patterns in her book, and in return she's printed my name in the acknowledgments! I can't picture myself writing a book, so this is as close as I'm going to get to being a published author.  I'll take it. 

Here's what I made.  This is Mirror Mirror from Quilts with an Angle:

Isn't the pattern effective? And it was quick to make too because the pieces are much larger than I'm used to dealing with.  The trick is all in the cutting, which is very well explained in the book.

Here's the back view showing off the edge to edge quilting done by Busy Bee Quilt Shop in Wellington, New Zealand.

the back view showing the wavy edge to edge quilting by Busy Bee Quilt Shop

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Mirror Mirror by Sheila Christensen
Quilted by Busy Bee Quilt Shop
Size: 40.5" x 58"


The full title of Sheila's new book is:
Quilts with an Angle: New Foolproof Grid Method and Easy Strip Cutting; 15 Projects with Triangles, Hexagons, Diamonds and More (A Field Guide)
and it's published by C and T Publishing.

There are seven "lessons" in the book, but there are more than seven patterns because the blocks can be assembled in different ways. The quilt below uses the same blocks as I used in my quilt above.

Here is the original version of Mirror Mirror from the book:

And my cut down version for a single or twin bed:

The book is full of clever patterns and I'm looking forward to making more of them.

If you're in NZ and would like a copy,  you can buy directly from Sheila's shop, Quilters Lane here.
If you're outside NZ, you can ask at your local quilt shop, or buy through Amazon here.
Or, you can follow the blog hop and enter the draw for a free electronic copy on each one of these blogs below.  Yes, there are 10 copies to give away - one at each stop on the blog hop:

April 16th C&T www.ctpub.com/blog
April 17^th Wendy Welsh  wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com
April 18^th Sheila Christensen www.mysteryquilter.com
April 19^th Angie Wilson www.gnomeangel.com
April 20^th Juliet van der Heijden www.thetartankiwi.com
April 21^st Kim Moos www.cottoncuts.com/blog
April 22^nd Yvonne Fuchs www.quiltingjetgirl.com
April 23^rd Aurifil www.auribuzz.wordpress.com
April 24^th Jacquie Gering tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com
April 25th Sheila Christensen www.mysteryquilter.com



To enter my giveaway for a free electronic copy of the book,  just tell me who your favourite fabric designer is, and add your email address if you're a No Reply Blogger.
I'll leave the give away open until the blog tour is over, and draw a name on 26 April.  Good luck everyone.

My first finish of 2019 - and the Peacock Party

I have a new quilt to share - Spotty.
This was quite an easy finish because I'd made this top back in 2015. Although it's a very pretty quilt, it's not exactly my style for my home.  So, I'm going to sell it.

The quilt measures 90" x 70" (229cm x 178cm).  It's multi directional, so can fit long ways on a single bed, or across a queen sized bed like this, with substantial amounts hanging down each side:

Here's some closeup photos of some of the blocks.  The main fabrics are from a range designed by Denyse Schmidt exclusively for Spotlight Australia / New Zealand.  That's why I've called the quilt "Spotty", because Australians refer to Spotlight as Spotty.

The quilt has pure cotton batting.  Here's a view of the back:

The quilting shows up really well on the back.  I had it quilted on a long arm machine at Busy Bee Quilters Wellington, NZ with hot pink thread:

These blocks were all made as part of a block of the month programme I participated in in 2015.  The shop that ran it has closed down now, but a number of us enjoyed making the blocks each month.

I intend to list this quilt on TradeMe next Wednesday 17 April.  If you live in NZ, and are interested in buying it, you can send me an email before then, and we can discuss.  I'll post the link to the TradeMe listing if it hasn't sold prior to Wednesday.

This sale is open to New Zealanders only.  I am not willing to post this quilt overseas sorry.
Repeating the vital stats:
Size 90" x 70" (229cm x 178cm)
Cotton batting

And now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What's everyone else been up to this week? Feel free to add a link below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Peacock Party

Yes, it's that time of the week again already! It's time for the Peacock Party.

I enjoyed clicking on all the links last week and seeing what everyone else is up to.  I saw at least two Good Fortune quilts underway.  Mine is still sitting in the "to be hand quilted pile", but it isn't even basted yet, so it's going to be while until I get to it.

It was lovely to see some new people linking up too - welcome to the Peacock Party.

Feel free to link up a blog post showing what you've been working on recently.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter