The non retirement quilt

I'm squeezing in one more finish before the end of the year and then my next blog post will be my annual wrap up. 

This quilt was designed and made for friend and work colleague. We gave it to her this week and she was thrilled.  

It possibly looks a bit washed out in these photos but it's bright!!

It's all 6" finished half square triangles but the placement works so well with these strong colours.  

I had this one long arm quilted at Busy Bee Quilt shop in Wellington.  The backing is a Kaffe Fassett wideback.  

I showed it at Capital Quilters guild meeting with my own purple/green version from quite a few years ago.  

The finished size is 60" x 60".

It's Carnival time at QuiltNSW Sydney Quilt Show

I'm very pleased to finally share some photos of my prize winning Carnival quilt on my blog. I just love how it's turned out.

This was my primary entry in the 2019 QuiltNSW Sydney Quilt Show - and it won two prizes!!!  Firstly I won a Judge's Commendation in the Pieced Quilt (Amateur) section, and then the Best Traditional Quilt Award (Amateur), which was judged across all of the amateur quilts in the show!

I was thrilled to win these awards, and very grateful to the sponsors and organisers.  My prize was sponsored by Lloyd Curzon Textiles who are wholesalers in the Australian market.  I won this wonderful bundle of Woolies Flannel from Maywood Studio.  These fabrics look like wool, but they are actually cotton flannel. I'm going to have fun making something special with these fabrics.  They remind me of the lovely quilts Sue Spargo creates, so I might just do something along those lines. 
 

I also won $100 from QuiltNSW and I confess to spending it five times over at all the retailers at the show! 

You can view all the winning quilt on the QuiltNSW website here.  I still can't believe my quilt is fourth on the list!

It was lovely to meet so many blog / Instagram / Facebook followers at the show.  Even though there wasn't time for indepth chats with everyone, it was still nice to say "Hello", and admire each others' quilts. 

My second entry in the show was my Tropical Hexagons which you can read all about here.

It didn't win any prizes, but it was lovely to see it hanging in the show.  Big, bold quilts like this do look great in big venues. 

Carnival quilt details:
I started this quilt in a Cobweb Quilt class in New Zealand with Chris Kenna - a New Zealand quilter.  This is her Cobweb pattern and I've noted further down how you can get a copy if you want to make one too.

Since the class in March 2017 I've spent an enjoyable two years working on this quilt.   The foundation paper piecing took many months, and then I spent a few more months hand quilting it myself. But I've enjoyed every minute of it.

the long orange threads are the basting threads applied by a long armer

The two colours of Aurifil I used to hand quilt Carnival.

I hand quilted Carnival with Aurifil 28wt and it was perfect for this quilt.  The 28wt is a very strong thread, and it worked well on a quilt like this with lots of seams.  I chose to quilt in the centre of each strip rather than in the ditch, however I did quilt in the ditch around the edge of each octagon.

If you'd like to read my earlier posts about this quilt you can click here:
How to joing the sections - March 2018
The top is together - August 2018

If you would like to make a quilt like this, the best way to get this exact pattern is to email Minerva Book Shop in Wellington, New Zealand. orders@minerva.co.nz  They can post you a copy (anywhere in the world), and will be sure to include the correction to the template published in the magazine. If you've got an old copy of the magazine at home, be sure to email or phone the shop and ask for the corrected template before you start sewing.  Otherwise your star points won't meet nicely. 

However, there are a number of similar patterns available - just google "cobweb quilt pattern". Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke have good ones in their book Material Obsession Two.  (Pop Stars and Maple Leaf Rag - page 116.)

Stats - Finished size 70" x 70" (177cm x 177cm)
Pattern - Cobweb Quilt by Chris Kenna in NZ Quilter magazine
Techniques - foundation paper pieced and hand quilted
Batting - wool
Thread used - Aurifil 28wt

Awards - QuiltNSW 2019 Sydney Quilt Show - Judge's Commendation in the Pieced Quilt - Large (Amateur) section and Best Traditional Quilt (Amateur).

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are now are now looking forward to New Year's Day. I'm staying with my mum and dad in Auckland at the moment.  It was lovely to surprise mum with the latest issue of New Zealand Quilter magazine.  

Both of our la passacaglia quilts are shown and there's a little article about the quilts.  Mum was very surprised to see her quilt there when she turned the page.  It seemed a lovely way to end 2016 for us both.  We're both very pleased we made our quilts, but they were a lot of work and required dedication to get them finished.  Now we can both move onto other exciting things.

A few days before Christmas I saw some beautiful knitted Christmas Balls on Instagram.  I discovered the patterns were by Arne & Carlos - Norwegian guys who design fun knitting patterns.  Naturally I had to give it a go, so I rushed out and got their book from the library and a set of 5 knitting needles.  I've never kitted socks, so this was always going to be an adventure for me.

I used scrap wool for my first attempt while I struggled to keep the knitting on the 4 needles.  It turned out a bit too big for mum's little tree.

I've never been one to give up easily, so I found their pattern for mini Christmas balls online. This one is smaller but still a bit chunky because I bought 4mm needles and had to use 8 ply wool. At least I've mastered the technique and could make more for next Christmas with 3mm needles.

I gave mum this Stars Upon Stars pattern by Laundry Basket Quilts for Christmas.  We've been making a test block out of these fabrics, and learning as we go.  I'm not sure which fabrics mum will use in her blocks yet. 

On Thursday I went shopping with some friends and came home with this lovely selection of fabrics. I'm naturally drawn to the blues and greens. I purposely chose fabrics that I hadn't seen in my local Wellington shops.

  

Finally, as it's summer here in New Zealand, here are some photos from my mum's garden.  Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for 2017.  

Lilium Regale - known as New Zealand Christmas lily.

Dahlia - Tsuki Yori No Sisha - Messengers from the Moon