Capital Quilters 2020 Exhibition is ON

Yes, I have great news for all the quilters in New Zealand.  

Our raffle quilt - see below for details

Capital Quilters' 2020 exhibition is going ahead on Sat 22 - Sunday 23 August 2020.  Everyone is welcome - we'd love to see you all there.  

There's lots to say about the exhibition, so I'll work through all you need to know.

WHO: Capital Quilters - I'm proud to be a member of Capital Quilters.  We're a large guild based in Lower Hutt, Wellington.  We meet at Waterloo School on the last Saturday afternoon of every month.  We have many talented members who have won prizes at national and international competitions.   You can follow our guild on Instagram @capitalquilters or Facebook CapitalQuiltersNZ to see more of our members' work.

WHAT: Our exhibition aims to showcase our members' work.  It is not a juried show, and every member is entitled to have a quilt in the exhibition.  Last time we have 200 quilts on display, and six vendors selling a wide range of quilting and craft supplies.  We're just confirming our 2020 vendors now, but there will definitely be quilt shops there to tempt you.  

WHEN: The exhibition will be open from 10am until 4pm on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 August 2020.    Entry is $8, with children 14 and under free.  

WHERE: This will be our second exhibition in the Lower Hutt Events Centre.  It's a beautiful modern building built specifically for exhibitions and conferences.   It's nice and cosy inside.

The Lower Hutt Events Centre is at 30c Laings Road, Lower Hutt. It is next to the Lower Hutt City Council building and the Town Hall, and is on the site of the old Horticultural Hall.  It's just a short stroll from Queensgate Shopping Centre.

My Vibrant Curiosities won Best in Show in our 2018 exhibition

FOOD: Tutaki Cafe is onsite at the Events Centre, and Bellbird Eatery is just across the road at The Dowse. There's also the Crooked Elm pub for lunch, and cafes over at Queensgate.  You won't go hungry! We offer pass outs so you can return on the same day for a better look at the quilts. 

TRANSPORT: If you're from out of town and decide to stay in Wellington, you could easily catch a bus out to Queensgate.  The Airport Flyer bus runs every 20 mins and costs $12 each way, or the regular bus runs every 30 mins and costs $8 (unless you have a Snapper card).  

FRIENDS: We're a very friendly bunch of people at Capital Quilters.  We're ready to welcome everyone to our exhibition.  We know many of you have had to cancel holidays this year, so how about taking a trip to Wellington and spending a few hours meeting new people and admiring the quilts at our exhibition.  I'm one of the organisers so I'll be there most of the weekend.

RAFFLE QUILT: I know there's going to be a lot of interest in our raffle quilt.  Jeanie O'Sullivan and Anne Read made this quilt after they were inspired by Maria Shell's quilts at the Auckland Symposium.  Rayna Clinton of Tui Song Quilting quilted the raffle quilt.  We've called it "Reality Check".

Raffle tickets are $2 each and limited to 2,000 tickets.  If you live in New Zealand, and are not a member of Capital Quilters, you can buy tickets through me.  Please send me an email to wendysquiltsandmore @ gmail . com (without the spaces). 

We are not selling tickets to people outside of New Zealand because the bank charges and postage costs would make it prohibitive.  

So, are you excited? Will I see you there? I certainly feel excited now that there's something good to look forward to.

Apologies to all our international friends - New Zealand's borders are closed to everyone except New Zealand citizens at the moment and that is unlikely to change in the short term. If the trans-Tasman bubble starts before 20 August we would certainly welcome any Australian "cousins".  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

 

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Zip It Up bags

A couple of weeks ago I watched Tula Pink's video launching her new black and white fabric line - Linework (It won't be available for months yet, so don't panic).  Towards the end of the video Tula showed two Zip It Up! bags she had made.  I thought they looked amazing so I dashed off and ordered the pattern from the Ribbon Rose in Auckland.

Here's a link to Tula's video.  The bags appear at about 22 minutes in.

Of course we can't get Linework yet, so I ordered some half yards of Tula's Homemade range for my bag.

I hadn't seen Homemade in real life, but I was very happy with it when it arrived.  I love how green the "Cut Once" fabric is, and I was very impressed that the squares really are 1", just like on my ruler.

I machine quilted the exterior with a pretty pink Aurifil, using a design from Jacqui Gering's Walk book.

A secret pocket on the back

The pattern has a pocket on the front of the outside, and then two pockets on the inside - one mesh and one vinyl.  I didn't like the idea of sewing vinyl on my sewing machine, so I made two mesh pockets, and I changed the exterior pocket from the front to the back.

And then I decided to make a smaller second Zip It Up! bag while I was at it.

The secret pocket on the back

I used a different design from Jacqui Gering's Walk book to quilt the Pokemon fabric. I enjoyed experimenting with different quilting designs.

The selvages on this Pokemon fabric are great, so I decided to incorporate them too.  (The fabric was purchased in Japan some years ago.)

Yes, it's a Gameboy Advance! A Zelda special edition.

So that's my latest experimentation with a Pattern by Annie.  Annie has so many great patterns.  Maybe I'll do a wrap up of all the bags I've made from her patterns in my next post.

What have you been up to this week?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post to the Peacock Party below.

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Endless Lockdown

Look at this! It's a finished quilt!

This is the Endless Summer pattern by Anna Maria Horner. But I've decided to call my version Endless Lockdown to reflect the fact that I made it during the COVID-19 lockdown of March/April/May 2020.

I first saw this quilt when Anna Maria came to New Zealand in November last year.  It was one of the quilts Anna Maria showed during her trunk show.  I just loved the quirky images and the way that they were used in the quilt, so I bought the kit as a Christmas present to myself.

At Easter I decided that I needed something substantial to get my teeth into, so I cracked open the kit and started to make this quilt.  I worked on it every day for the next three weeks and loved every minute of it.

The quilt is 64" x 64" so I thought I might have something that would work for the backing.  I found a big piece of Libs Elliott skulls fabric in purple that was almost big enough.  I fussy cut some of the leftover fabrics and made a strip to make the backing big enough.

 

The back looks almost as good as the front

I've got a backlog of quilts to be hand quilted, so I decided to get this quilt quilted by a local long arm quilter, Rayna Clinton of Tui Song Quilting at Wainuiomata.  I know Rayna through our guild, and I've been impressed with her quilting on other people's quilts.

As soon as we were free to leave our homes, I went to see Rayna and we discussed patterns and thread colours for my quilt.  A week later my quilt was finished and ready to pick up.  I asked Rayna to  baste a couple of other quilts at the same time, so my hand quilting pile now has grown even bigger!

So my quilt is finished - quilted, bound, washed and ready to keep my knees warm on winter nights. I'm really happy with how it's turned out.

I've included a link at the top to Anna Maria Horner's website, but a word of warning - be very careful ordering any quilting supplies from outside your home country at the moment.  I know people in Australia, New Zealand and Europe who are all waiting for items to ship from USA at the moment. I'm sure there are problems with freight going the other way too, so just try to order locally if at all possible to avoid disappointment.



Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post and let us know what you've been working on.

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Perfect Circles

So many people commented on my circle blocks in last week's post.

Everyone wanted to know how I got them looking so good!  Well, I followed Jen Kingwell's video on YouTube.  I've put a link to it here so you can watch it too.

Jen uses Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Circles and Bigger Perfect Circles.  I already had these circles in my cupboard because I use them for wool felt applique.  They last for ever and ever (as long as you don't distort them with a super hot iron).  Most quilt shops stock Perfect Circles.

Jen puts a gathering thread around the edge of her circle before pulling it tight around the Perfect Circle.  Then she sprays it with Flatter before pressing it.

Once you have a crisp edge you can pop the template out and pin your circle onto the background fabric.  Jen recommends Aurifil 80wt for applique, and I do too.  It's very fine and almost disappears into the fabric.

In the video Jen shows exactly how she angles her needle when she appliques.  It's well worth watching because it will help you to keep your stitches invisible when you applique.

I had this quilt basted by a local long arm quilter - Rayna Clinton from Tui Song Quilting.  I'm really pleased with how it's looking and I can't wait to start hand quilting it.

What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

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My quickest quilt top ever

As I played around with my Marshal Mystery Quilt blocks last week, I came to the realisation that I would be better off making two quilts, rather than trying to combine all the blocks into one quilt.

I liked the idea of combining the small square blocks into rows or columns, so I looked in my stash for something that I could use as a background fabric.  Spurred on by people who say tell me that I'm so bold with my fabric choices, I used this Michael Millar fabric that's been in my stash for more than five years.  It's very bright, but maybe a young person will love it one day.

I sewed my 4" blocks into rows and bordered them with some black Grunge fabric that I also had in my stash.

I then fussy cut the hexie fabric so that there were two full hexagons width in each column.

It's off getting basted now because I'm going to hand quilt it.

So, I made a quilt top in four days!!! That's incredible for me.  I know the blocks were already made, and the background is just long strips, but it's still very good going for me because I normally spend weeks or months on each quilt that I make.

The other Marshal blocks are back in a box with the Lollies fabric.  I feel good that I've used half of the Marshal blocks, so will just let the remainder rest for a while.

What have you been up to this week? Feel free to join the Peacock Party by linking up a recent blog post below.

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Marshal Mystery Quilt revisited

Today I decided to revisit my Marshal Mystery Quilt.  The Marshal quilt was designed by Jen Kingwell and released in Quiltmania magazine throughout 2019.

 

I made most of the blocks during 2019, but when the final quilt was revealed at Houston in November, I lost motivation to continue.  I didn't like the final design, so I've spent some months thinking about how I could use all the blocks I spent hours making.

The full reveal of the Marshal mystery quilt

I decided to buy yardage of Jen Kingwell's Lollies fabric and planned to applique the feature blocks onto it like my good friend Racheldaisy did in a quilt that she designed.

My plan this morning

However, I still had the issue of how to use all the 4" square blocks.  So I started playing with them this afternoon.

Now I've decided that it's either going to be the hand pieced blocks OR the 4" square blocks.  I don't think I can incorporate them both into the same quilt.

So it's back to the drawing board as I consider how to make the most of what I've got in front of me.

Thanks for all the comments in support of shopping local.  I've added a new tab with a list of NZ quilt shops.  I haven't quite worked through all my emails yet, but I promise to do that tomorrow morning and will add any more mentioned in those emails.  I'll also add more details about where each shop is.  

How's your quilting going? Are you getting lots done?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

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