Symposium Quilts

What a busy few weeks it has been. Sorry no time to post a new blog and as I am just back from Queenstown where I went to be a merchant at the Remarkable Quilt Symposium I thought I had better let you know what has been going on. Getting things ready for my stall in the merchant mall took quite a while, preparing kits, packs of fabrics and patterns. My wonderful friend Sheryl was helping me at the Symposium so I went to stay at her place on Friday night and then we drove down to Wellington to catch the ferry on Saturday 16th April. Just outside of Wellington at Paekakariki we came across a bus broadside onto the road, it had obviously stopped suddenly and slid around to block the road. Luckily there was a little gap that the cars could pass around it so we weren't late for the ferry. A very calm sailing, thank goodness. Neither of us like sailing. It was very full tho' with 1600 passengers. Embarking at Picton we stopped for lunch and a look around, unfortunately there was very fine drizzle the whole time. Headed off and just outside Blenheim on a winding hill stretch we came across another bus in trouble, this one had gone over the shoulder of the road, luckily on the hill side and was tilted at a strange angle. We drove carefully past this and headed for Kaikoura, all the time there was this fine drizzly rain. Outside of Kaikoura, headed up the Hunderlea hills we saw a camper van on the opposite side of the road stop and put its hazzard lights on and the occupants run back along the road, so I asked if there was trouble. They said a car had just gone down the bank so we pulled over to help. Luckily no injuries but I had trouble telling the 111 service where we were as it was all new area to us, then some more cars stopped and we were able to give them a better idea of where they were needed. After 3 accidents we travelled very carefully, thinking we should get a Lotto ticket. We were heading for Christchurch and arrived there after the 5.1 earthquake they had Saturday night, so someone was looking over us. There was a 3.5 shock whilst we were there but it wasn't much. Driving across Christchurch we saw many instances of peoples homes damaged and roads which were no longer straight and even. One house had a corner wall fallen down and a bed on the second floor was hanging over this edge. We feel very sorry for the residents.Slept reasonably okay and then got up early to drive to Queenstown. We came across no more accidents thankfully so a much better day for driving. The colours passing through the area were striking with many trees having turned golden yellow or red. We arrived safely in Queenstown mid afternoon and went to the school to set up. We got most of the stand set up and then left for the night, arriving again at 8am Monday morning to finish as we opened the merchant mall at 1pm. It had snowed on the ranges overnight and it was a lovely sight to see, just a little on the cold side though.There were some very eager quilters in Queenstown for the week who couldn't wait to check out what was on offer in the mall. There were about 30 shops in a very 'cosy' area. We had a lovely and busy week and thank all the quilters who visited us.A big thank you to the girls who looked after us in the merchant mall, it was much appreciated.
I had entered 2 quilts which I can now share with you.
This first one was using up my scraps. I hate throwing anything out so I keep all usable sizes in a basket and delved into this for the New York Beauty blocks and the border triangles. I used a white fabric as my background which I think gives the fabrics a fresh look. (Somehow the photo looks blue but it is fresh white with bright colours) The whole quilt is 50cm square and each NYB block is 10cm. I was really pleased with my quilting too, quite traditional for me. I called this quilt Fiesta. I foundation pieced this on lightweight sew-in vilene.

The next quilt was inspired by the works of Alphonse Mucha. I love his work and was so pleased to see that it came out of copyright January of this year. I used raw edge applique and fancy stitches to apply the appliques. The face was hand painted by me first and then appliqued into place. The shot for the face detail is below. I am really pleased with the way the face came out, using textile paint, Prismacolour pencils and Pigma pens. The daisies are broderie perse style flowers printed on fabric and then I painted them to change the colour to suit as they were too white.

Here is the face detail on flesh coloured fabric. After painting/drawing I appliqued this onto the quilt background then added hair etc.

Unfortunately I did not win anything in the exhibition but I am pleased my quilts were accepted and that they looked good in the exhibition.
Thanks for visiting,
Dianne