In between

This post comes to you from the darkened cabin of a Qantas 380 Airbus high above Western Samoa. Finally I have time to exhale, count my blessings, and catch up on some sleep!

 

I'm one finger typing on my DiPhone, on my way to Savannah, Georgia, and  Quiltcon East, via Florida where I'm excited to be meeting up with Linda Hungerford (Flourishing Palms) for some adventures. 

It's a strange feeling, after dreaming of making this trip for so long, and I can't believe I'll be landing in LA in just a few hours.

 

My Quiltcon entry, Levitation Fascination, wasn't one of the 400 or so modern quilts accepted into the show, but I'm OK with that since the standard was very high. It's already won me a rosette for Viewers' Choice at the Modern Quilt Show Australia last November, and I hope I can enter it in a few more shows yet.

Isn't that the cutest rosette you've ever seen? I'm looking forward to spending my prize, a $50 gift voucher from My Sewing Supplies, when I get back home.

 

 

There will still be thrills ahead for us, and a potential prize winner, since one of Linda's three Quiltcon entries was selected for inclusion. Yay!

Also on our itinerary after Quiltcon is AQS Quilt Week at Daytona Beach, Florida. This time I'm extremely happy to tell you my other rosette winner from last year, Out of the Square, has been juried into the show, along with several others from Aussie quilters. There will certainly be plenty of quilty eye candy for this shutterbug to photograph, so watch this space!

 

Those fabulous rainbow shades are all from Karen Lewis' Blueberry Park range, and I love how they worked together.

 

Out of the Square won the award at the Sydney Quilt Show for Best Modern Interpretation of a Traditional Quilt, sponsored by Melinda Smith of Quiltsmith, and I've already spent some of my $500 worth of gift vouchers on those glorious solids I used in Levitation Fascination. 

As an aside, the wool batting I used in Out of the Square was Nu-Wool,  of my Sydney Quilt Show prizes for Taking Liberties, my 3rd placed wall quilt from the year before. One quilt's rewards contributing to the creation of another - I love that! 

If you're not a follower of my posts on Instagram you'll be reading most of this news of last year's awards for the first time. I certainly had some catching up to do! 

For a litttle fun, here's a computer-generated pattern from www.makelight.com showing the colours I used in the quilts I posted on Instagram throughout the year.

You're probably surprised at the amount of yellow, but I'm finding myself adding a little (or a lot!) of this sunny colour to most of my quilts these days.

 

At the same time I'm looking forward, hoping for a year of creative satisfaction - not necessarily involving awards!

How's this for creative satisfaction: my baby granddaughter, Princess 2, joyfully tossing around some of my pretty fabrics. I hope to make a quilter of her one day.

 

 

Last year I chose JOY as my Word for the Year. It didn't go too well. In my humble opinion, joy is something that has to be sought. It's there to be found, if we only approach what happens to us with the right attitude, and I confess I fell into the trap of negativity far too often last year.

So I'm once again making JOY my Word for the Year. Yes, I'm giving it another go, because it's worth finding.

 

Bloggers' Quilt Festival Entry : 'Happy'

After a year's break from entering Amy's twice yearly Bloggers' Quilt Festival I'm back, this time with my quilt, "Happy", made for a Quilting Expo at my local Spotlight store.

There were three 'firsts' associated with this quilt, starting with the fact that this was my first entry into a quilt competition.

The rules stipulated that only Spotlight-bought fabrics could be used, and, as you can imagine, I was devastated that I had to buy more fabric (said no quilter ever lol). 

A huge variety of fat quarters in tone-on-tone rainbow colours gave me the stash I needed to start cutting out teardrop shapes and fusing them onto a solid background of Spotlight's Prima homespun in white.

First I created the wreath shape in the centre, then the lines of colourful leaves at the top and bottom of the quilt.

Then I pinned and pinned, sandwiching my quilt with a double layer of poly batting. No, I hadn't forgotten to stitch the appliqué. I raw-edge appliqueed the shapes and quilted around them in the one process. 

Then came the fun part - free motion quilting all that white space!

A few months before this I had taken an online Craftsy class on free motion quilting feathers with Angela Walters but, apart from endless small practice pieces, I had never used my newly acquired (rudimentary!) domestic machine free motion quilting skills on a proper quilt.

I took a very deep breath and embarked on another 'first'!

I've always dreamed of quilting feathers, feathers and more feathers, so I might have gone a tad over the top with this quilt running through my Bernina 1230.

Taking photos to show the texture of this quilt still makes me happy, as does running my hands over those feathers.

And I won! In a most surprising way. You can read about it in this blog post. 

I'm entering 'Happy' in the Home Machine Quilted Quilt category, so please pop over there and take a look at the other entries. 

That's also the page where, from this Friday 22nd May, you can vote for your favourite quilts in this category. 

Or nominate a quilt for Viewers Choice here. 

Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival always attracts lots of gorgeous quilts, and there is so much to see on her blog in all the other categories too.

A huge thank you to Amy for such a mammoth undertaking that regularly brings happiness to so many of us!

Australia Flair

It was a combination that fired my imagination in a way I'd never been moved before in my quiltmaking journey: two pristine fat quarter bundles of Emma Jean Jansen's Terra Australis (my favourite fabric range of 2014), the Quick Curve ruler, and the Quiltcon Panasonic  Bias Tape Challenge.

Today I'd like to share with you my second Quiltcon entry, 'Australia Flair', a quilt I hope conveys the sunshine, warmth and celebration that is our Australian summer.

The challenge brief was simple, to create a quilt using appliquéed handmade bias tape as the main design element. 

I started by using my Quick Curve Ruler to cut out plain white quadrants which would be my main shapes.

As a lover of appliqué I've been using Clover Bias Makers for many years, and from my collection I chose the 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch and 1 inch sizes. I pressed open one folded edge of the 1 inch wide bias which was eventually taken up in the seam allowance when I sewed my arcs into blocks

After marking the arcs on my quadrants, I initially used tiny dots of Roseanne's Glue Baste-It to hold my strips in place. However I soon decided I was more comfortable with hand tacking the strips, ready to machine appliqué them using Auriful Invisible thread.

I tried to graduate the shades diagonally across my quilt, from warm to cool, and on the white space in the middle I 'tossed' a multi-coloured streamer. This was meant to be a party quilt, after all.

I used a double-batt, this time Australia's finest Matilda's Own wool/poly on top, combined with Quilter's Dream Poly Request, to ensure a nice thick base for my free motion machine quilting, and a resistance to fold lines in case Australia Flair had to travel.

As you can imagine, a quilt that thick needed LOTS of pins to ensure all those layers didn't move!

Confident that my pinning would hold the layers, I flew in the face of convention (what a rebel I am!) and began by quilting the arc blocks on my Bernina 1230 domestic machine, and using Aurifil Mako 50 threads in white 2024, leaving the central area until last. To be truthful, this was because I hadn't yet decided how I was going to quilt that part.

After all those feathery shapes, in the end I went for simple twin-stitched cross-hatching, to rest the eye but still give plenty of texture.

'Australia Flair' is my first serious competition quilt, so I washed, pegged out and blocked it carefully so it would hang straight, especially necessary with all that bulk. 

Then I auditioned 2 1/4 inch wide strips for the multicolored binding until I decided on this combination that continued the graduated colour story right out to the edges.

Here you can see the binding machined on before I trimmed back the batting and backing to half an inch from the stitching line. I like a well-stuffed binding!

Did you notice those flapping tails on the corner of my quilt in the pic above? My previous attempts at machined mitred binding corners have ended in frustration and tears, but I was determined to master this method which leaves no binding tails to join along an edge. All the joins are within the neatly stitched mitred corners, or at least that's the theory!  

Woohoo! It worked!

I've loved every minute spent making this quilt but, like Happy, my other Quiltcon entry, Australia Flair won't be making the trip to Austin, Texas.

I'm not the only quilter who assumed that, as long as an entry in the Panasonic Bias Tape Challenge met the competition criteria, it stood a reasonable chance of being accepted. 

As well, I had reason to think that Australia Flair was one of a reasonably small pool of entries. A search of the Instagram hashtag #biastapechallenge and #panasonicbiastapechallenge comes up with entries by just six quilters, myself included. Clearly there must have been lots more Bias Tape Challenge quilts not shared on social media.

I was a little sad that it wasn't juried into the Quiltcon exhibition and, having put so much work into the creation of Australia Flair, the dust of disappointment clung to me just a little longer than it did with Happy. 

But I've brushed myself down, pulled on my big-girl panties and accepted that what will be will be.

Come February, though, when so many of my online quilting friends are meeting up in Austin, Texas, sharing photos of the fun on Instagram and getting to see in real life the magnificent quilts that made the cut, I'm sure I'll discover one or two of those pesky little grains still stuck in my shoe, and once again wish that, if I couldnt be at Quiltcon, at least Australia Flair might have gone.

Happy

I'm afraid there's been little time for blogging here lately, with my sewing machine whirring late into the night for weeks on end. I've been busy making quilts and trying to put my personal 'word of the year' - COURAGE - into practice by entering a couple of competitions for the very first time.

Today I'd like to show you one of my entries, a quilt I've called 'Happy' because that's just how it makes me feel.

{My photos were taken at different times during the process, in varying light conditions}

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I initially entered it in the Quilting Expo at my local Spotlight store, the rules being that it needed to be my own original design and made entirely of fabrics bought from Spotlight.

Basically, I just took a single piece of Spotlight's white homespun, and fused a rainbow of petal shapes to it. Like many quilters, I have a love/hate relationship with Spotlight and their fabrics, but their homespun is one of my favourites. It's so soft and just beautiful to work with, and I always keep many metres in my stash.

I used a double batting for the first time, but rather than use the recommended combination of a wool and a poly batting, I used what was on hand and made a double poly sandwich before appliquéing and quilting the petals in the one process.

Then came the fun part, free motion quilting all that white space!

I might have gone just a little over the top with those feathers!

Finally I bound it in one of my favourite blue prints, an abstract floral that reads as plain, but has enough liveliness to be interesting, if that isn't too contradictory :-)

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the competition. My Spotlight store took down all the signs advertising the Quilting Expo!

 I checked with the store a week before, and again on the day of the advertised event, and on both occasions I was told it was still on, and invited to bring my quilt in for judging.

But there were no other entries :-)

So in the strangest of circumstances, it won! And I won a sewing machine!

Emboldened by my 'win', I summoned up all my courage, took a very, very deep breath and entered Happy in the Modern Quilt Guild Quiltcon competition. This is a juried competition, attracting world wide entries, but nothing ventured....

Of course it was rejected, on the basis of these two photos below from my online entry.

The Quiltcon exhibition judges had clearly given a lot of thought to the sensitive, encouraging wording of their rejection email, but it still took me several hours to come to terms with it. Instagram was alight with excited quilters posting screen shots of their acceptance emails, and pics of beautiful quilts that will hang at Quiltcon next February, and I couldn't help feeling left out of the party.

It wasn't until I learnt that from around 1,350 entries only about 300 had been chosen that I started to feel a little better. 

And then quilters like me, coming to terms with their disappointment, gradually started to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and gather courage to post pics to Instagram of their #rejectedfromquiltcon and #quiltconreject quilts. The trickle soon swelled to a torrent and by the end of the day there was a virtual quilt show of #tunaquilts ('the fish John West rejects', get it?😄)

And these rejected quilts were magnificent!!!!

I have plans for this quilt, and the experience of entering an international competition has taught me a great deal. It's also made me even more determined to become a better quilter.

Sydney Quilt Show 2014

Forget sugar plums, when I close my eyes since last week's Sydney Quilt Show I have visions of quilts dancing in my head. Bright, exuberant, happy, ingeniously conceived quilts, cleverly pieced, intricately quilted and beautifully displayed in our new exhibition venue. 

It's just a (hugely) glorified tent, made comfortable with carpeted floors, air conditioning and all other services connected, but from the time the first exhibitors arrived to set up the word on everyone's lips was 'light'. The fabric of the roof - you can see it in the first photo - diffused the sunlight, and simply lit up the quilts with the most amazingly soft, flattering light. We all like a bit of that, don't we?

Come on, let me show you.

{Lucky for us, I have the permission of all these quilters to post my photos of their quilts - Rachaeldaisy, Jen Davis aka Penny Poppleton, Michelle Law, Chris Jurd, Selina Cheng, Sue Rowles, Sue Robbins - and even Janet Treen!}

Rachaeldaisy has been teasing us on her blog,in the most delightful way, for the last few weeks, revealing tantalizing glimpses of whimsical clamshells, but saving the big reveal of her entire quilt until the show. Here it is, in all its colourful, cheeky, prize winning glory, a fitting winner of Third Prize in the category Mixed Techniques, Anything Goes!

Happy as a Clam

By Rachaeldaisy of Blue Mountain Daisy

Next is this year's collaborative quilt by the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild. This beauty has taught me never to underestimate the 'wow' potential of a humble, traditional block in the right hands. These SMQG girls are experts at 'wow', and have worked their modern magic on the pickle dish block.

Rainbow Rays

By the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild

{Photo posted with permission from Jen Davis aka Penny Poppleton}

Michelle Law was another quilter who shared little glimpses of her creative journey on her blog. She had no expectations of winning with this seemingly simple concept, but her fabrics, placement and wonderfully textured quilting made it a clear winner of First Prize in the category of Modern - New Traditions from Old Favourites.

Across the Universe

By Michelle Law of Buttontree Lane

You can always count on Blue Mountains quilter and quilt teacher, Chris Jurd, to come up with something spectacular. Chris is the 'queen' of New York Beauty, Mariners Compass, Curved Geese and the like.

Come up closer so you can get a good look at her piecing in these New York Beauty blocks. Those points!

Fiesta

By Chris Jurd of Patchwork Fundamentals

Selina Cheng is a talented young modern quilter, one of the SMQG creators of Rainbow Rays. I always love the way she uses colour!

Mondrian Dreaming

By Selina Cheng of Mad Quilter's Disease

Fellow Paddington Patchworker, Sue Rowles, entered two quilts in this year's show. Zig Zag, which she made from jelly rolls, demonstrates that monochrome doesn't have to mean monotonous. Her Zig Zag has zing!

The white space gave Sue the perfect canvas for showing off her skill as a long arm quilter.

Zig Zag

By Sue Rowles of Sue's Top Finish

She also works in glorious colour, and the colours in this quilt are her favourite palette. I like how the lines of chevrons at the top and bottom add flair to the design.

Stars for Ruby

By Sue Rowles of Sue's Top Finish (02 9519 5907)

I was excited to take this photo of my friend Sue Robbins, another Paddington Patchworker, with her quilt Bungendore. I love to see a quiltmaker standing proudly with her quilt, and Sue has every reason to smile. Her beautiful quilt, which she describes in her notes as 'a riot of colour', won Third Place in the category Commercially Machine Quilted Quilt (Small), and was quilted by none other than Sue Rowles!

Bungendore

By Sue Robbins

Also on display were all the state winners from the 2013 Quilt Shows, the work of the creme de la creme of Australia's quiltmakers. 

Janet Treen took out Best of Show with her entirely hand appliquéed and quilted quilt, Rings and Roses, at the Sydney Quilt Show last year, and it went on to be chosen as Best of Australia earlier this year.

Rings and Roses

By Janet Treen of Quiltsalott

Amazingly, Janet again won Best of Show in this year's Sydney Quilt Show, this time with with her quilt Coxcombs and Currants. 

In a milieu increasingly populated by modern quilts, Janet's consummate skill with a needle and thread has ensured that her exquisite, more traditional quilts have risen to the top two years in a row.

In addition to Best of Show Coxcombs and Currants won first prize in the Traditional Professional category, the Retaining the Tradition prize, and the Best Hand Quilting Award. Wow!

In case you think I'm indulging in hyperbole, here's a close up photo of Janet's work. Can you believe this is all hand stitched?

In a nod to the Amish tradition of including a deliberate mistake in their work (reasoning that only God can create something perfect) Janet has tweaked her design in a tiny way. Can you spot her deliberate mistake?

Coxcombs and Currants

By Janet Treen of Quiltsalott

You can see why I'm in inspiration overload, and itching to try some new quiltmaking techniques and designs. Who knows, I might even do something courageous and enter a quilt next year.

I think I just need a few more hours in my day.