Auckland Festival of Quilts - Aotearoa Quilters Orange Challenge

Like previous years, the Aotearoa Quilters 12 x 12 colour challenge quilts were on display at the Auckland Festival of Quilts.  This year the colour was orange.

I didn't enter a quilt because I had entered three mini quilts in our Capital Quilters guild 12 x 12 challenge this year.  You can see my entries in that challenge by clicking here.

I did have an orange 12 x 12 quilt in the Capital Quilters challenge, but I couldn't enter it into Aotearoa Quilters challenge because I'd already published photos of it on my blog and Instagram. That policy is currently under review and if you're a member of Aotearoa Quilters I'd encourage you to answer the survey they sent out at the weekend. and let your views be known.

My favourite this year was "3 Baobab Trees" by Theresa Vaughan.

The overall winner was "Is Orange really the New Black" by Liz McKenzie.

You can read about and see photos on my blog from the previous Aotearoa Quilters challenges here:
Green challenge - 2015
Yellow challenge - 2016

Next year it's PINK.  What can I possibly do for that?  Suggestions welcome.

Capital Quilters 12 x 12 Exhibition - Open NOW

We had the official opening of our 12 x 12 exhibition last night and it was great to see such a variety of mini quilts on display.

There were 12 categories and members could enter as many quilts as they liked.  I entered three quilts and here they are:

1.  Bedazzle

I made a modern interpretation on a whole cloth quilt by hand quilting and embellishing one piece of Kaffe Fassett fabric.  I used some of my embroidery threads and some beads to add bling because the theme was Bedazzle.

I won a Highly Commended ribbon for this quilt and I was thrilled.  There was one winner and one highly commended in each category, so I was very happy.

Here's a better photo taken at home:

2. Flora and Fauna

I used my favourite wool felt applique technique to make a bouquet of flowers.

3. Round the World

I bought some special Frida Kahlo fabric at Bolt of Cloth in Auckland and decided to use it in this mini quilt.  I fussy cut some images of Frida and then worked around them to build it out to 12" square.  This quilt includes machine and hand quilting.

Most of us had been keeping our quilts secret, so it was lovely to see them all revealed and be able to match the quilt with the maker.

The Best of Show award went to Lyn White for her amazing mini called "Light Show at the Museum". Congratulations Lyn.

Here's all the details of the exhibition.  Best news is it's FREE, so if you live in Wellington I recommend you make plans to visit either this weekend or next.

Finishing takes so long....

Do you find that? You start new quilts with great gusto, and think they won't take long to make, but somehow when you get to the finishing stages you get distracted by new ideas, and the pile of unfinished quilts gets bigger and bigger.

I've accepted that April and May just have to be my finishing months this year.  This year I've entered three different shows!! Yes, from never having entered a show to entering three in one year.  It's just the way it's worked out.

1. Capital Quilters 12 x 12 Exhibiton

We're having a 12 x 12 exhibition at Capital Quilters from 2-12 August this year, and I handed in my three entries on Saturday.  I can't show you them yet because the quilts are being judged and I have to keep my entries secret until then.

If you live in Wellington, or even further afield like Levin or Palmerston North, do come for a look.  It's fee entry and from the few I saw on Saturday there's going to be some great minis on display.  We already had over 30 entries on Saturday and the main hand in day isn't for another month yet.

2. Sydney Quilt Show - Quilt NSW

I'm a member of Quilt NSW in Australia (New South Wales).  It's a huge guild that welcomes overseas members too.  Their annual show will be held at the Sydney Convention Centre from June 22-25 and two of my quilts will be in the show! My la passacaglia and Oh! Christmas Tree will both on display.

I'm very excited because I'm going over to Sydney for the show and it will be the biggest quilt show I've ever been to.  I've made lots of online friends who live in Sydney, and it will be nice to meet them face to face.  I hear the stalls at the show are great too, so I better put my credit card on hold until then. I'll be there on Thursday and Friday if you're looking for me.

3.  Quilt Symposium Christchurch

Our national symposium is in October and entries close on 13 June.  I've been working furiously on two quilts for most of this year.  One is a secret and I won't post any photos until the exhibition in October, but the other is my Possum Magic quilt which everyone has seen throughout it's three year life.  There's one category for quilts totally made by one person (which I'm entering) and then another category for quilts made by more than one person.  Possum Magic will be in the second category because it's a group effort.  You can read more about the round robin I was in here.

My centre block that I made

I'm still hand quilting the final sections of the quilt, but I really hope to have it ready for photographing this coming weekend.  I'm using Aurifil 12wt and 28wt on this quilt.  I use the 12wt for all the visible decorative quilting, and 28wt for when I'm quilting in the ditch. The red spools are 12wt and the grey ones are 28wt.

I'm not aiming for prizes, but just having my quilts hanging in the show would be great.  It's a juried show, so not every quilt gets accepted.

I always use a hoop when I'm hand quilting.

So that's what I've been up to lately.  I'm really looking forward to starting something new once all these deadlines have passed.

Capital Quilters 12 x 12 Exhibition

I'm currently working on three mini quilts for our guild's upcoming 12 x 12 exhibition. It's not until 31 July - 13 August, but we need to hand our quilts in by 24 June.  I can't show you my quilts yet, but I certainly will post photos from the exhibition on my blog.

I've only previously made one 12 x 12 quilt, and that was for Aotearoa Quilters Yellow challenge.

When I look at it now I think it was very basic, but I guess we all have to start somewhere.

Here's two others that were in the same exhibition and they are fantastic:

I'm trying to be more adventurous with these new minis, and pack a lot into each one.  I was really inspired by these minis in the Aotearoa Quilters Green challenge in 2015:

Here are some of my favourites from this challenge (I don't have the maker's names sorry):

Our organising committee have come up with 12 different categories we can enter for the Capital Quilters 12 x 12 exhibition.  They are:

1. Pink
2. Flora & Fauna
3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
4. Round the World
5. Kiwiana
6. Through the Lens
7. Celebrations
8. Buildings
9. Friendship
10.Bedazzle
11.Childhood
12.Safety

Those categories give lots of scope for everyone to come up with something.  Some of us are just dreaming up an idea and then trying to find which category it fits in to. I can't wait to see all the different interpretations of the categories.