Wine Country Quilts 2016 Exhibition

What a wonderful venue for a quilt exhibition. Pukeora Estate (wine) located in an old Hospital on top of a hill just outside the country town of Waipukarau in Central Hawke's Bay.  Being an ex Hawke's Bay girl, this was my first visit to this property.  What a buzz.

The event was well spread out throughout the buildings.  Two large halls for the exhibition and merchants located in ward rooms of a corridor. The Janome the main sponsor had all the new and current machines on display.

Meet Laurel from Dzigna Knits.  This piece was amazing.  I did buy one of her garments
Check out the detail below.  All hand made.  Just amazing.

Now for the exhibition.

Metallic by Gayle Burns
1st prize Traditional Pieced and or appliqued quilt under 1.2m

Autumn Years by Catherine Stoddart

 

Autumn Leaves are Falling by Deborah Beldham

Common Bride by Meg Peterson
Merit Prize Traditional Pieced Quilter over 1.2m

 

Detail - Common Bride

Pieces of the Past by Vicki-Marie Thomson

 

Detail - Pieces of the Past

Kaleidoscope Sky
Merit Traditional Pieced quilt over 1.2m

Detail of Kaleidoscope Sky

Elm Creek Sampler by Judy Bett

Fans from Japan by Carol Dacey

Detail view of Fans from Japan

Low volume plus by Vivienne Franklin

Rhapsody in Blue by Sue Burns.
1st Traditional pieces quilt over 1.2m

Persian Window by Lucy Stephenson
1st Domestic machine quilting

Never Again by Judy Coldstream

Millefiore by Margot McLennan

Kowhai by Sue Stothers

Pohutukawa by Sue Stothers

Porangahau Arts by Linda Warner
1st Contemporary Quilt

The background made from baby knitware.  Quite a moving piece.

Lets Celebrate with Wine Country Quilts by Barbara Harder
Challenge quilt - theme "What goes around comes around"

Stitch n Chat made for a stitching friend.
1st Prize group quilt

 

Center panel in Stitch n Chat.  This block presents where the recipient was from.

Indian Girl by Joanne Farmery.
1st Contemporary Quilt under 1.2m
 

Secret Garden by Barbara Harder



Secret Garden detail- 3d flowers

I Twat I Taw a Putty Tat by Sheena Hewitt

 

Detail.

Anne yeo was their Guest Exhibitor.  Here are a couple of her stunning quilts. 



All Tied Up

HMS Endeavour

Detail - HMS Endeavour

Arum Bouquets

Detail - Arum Bouquets

I spent a lot of money, caught up with quilters I hadn't seen for a while and topped of the weekend with a quilting retreat with my girlfriends at Waitarere Beach.  We spent some time with Griet Lombard in her studio and she visited us the following morning look at our projects.

There were so many quilts.  Some of my photos were blurry so I haven't used them.
I have tried to post a variety of styles so hopefully there is one amongst these to inspire you.

Happy stitching friend.

"Not just for Spies"

My objective this year (not a New Years resolution) is to work with fabrics and techniques that I am unfamiliar or not confident with.

For a bit of fun, I have been exploring codes.   This "Not Just for Spies" quilt is made up using a code found on the FBI website. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/april/can-you-crack-a-code/can-you-crack-a-code

For my background I have used the reverse side of this printed linen. I liked the faint texture coming through of the clock faces. 

The Go Baby circle cutter was incredibly quick.  These circles are made of a selection of men's suiting, shot cottons and craft cottons.  I had to put right sides together when cutting more than one circle at the same time because the fusible webbing on the wrong side made them stick together and separating them caused damage to the circles.

I rechecked my code so many times as I found the lite fusible didn't really adhere to the linen well and my circles kept falling of.  Locally I couldn't buy standard fusible - only lite which isn't strong enough for this type of work.

I felt that my quilt would look better without a binding frame.  I cut my binding strips 3" wide and ironed them in half wrong sides together.  Sewed bindings to the sides of the quilt first in the same manner as you would with the standard binding technique  but leaving 3/4" short on each end.

back of quilt, binding made from the same fabric 3/4" short.
 

Opened out  the binding and top stitched from the front of the quilt.

Front of quilt.

Once top stitched, fold binding onto the back and hand stitch down.  As the binding is folded, the front edge rolls around to the back as well.

Sew binding onto the top and bottom of the quilt.  Each strip must be longer than the width of the quilt as the fabric at each end  is folded  and tucked under into the binding hiding the raw edge.

Back of quilt with binding corner.

Recently I attended a class with Lisa Walton.  She mentioned how she always uses the same weight fabric on the front and back of her quilts so my backing is made from linen as well.
With two layers of linen and cotton batting I had to increase my stitch length to 3.5 to stop puckering when quilting and sewing on my binding.

 

I used a Frixion pen to mark out my quilting and these iron out.   So wonderful.  If I made a mistake, the clover iron became my rubber.  Fortunately the weather here in Lower Hutt never gets to -9deg.  If it does - my markings will re appear unless I wash my quilt.



Here's my quilt with the cipher code below.

We are having a fantastic summer and I have to say this quilt was incredibly hot to work on.
Happy stitching.