Challenge quilts

Sophie and I have had a busy week (apart from all the normal things). Yesterday we had to submit the quilts for the Challenge for this year's quilter's guild exhibition.

The challenge was to interpret a playing card in a quilt of a given size. Each person who wanted to do the challenge was dealt 4 cards from a deck, and they had to choose one of them on the spot.

This was repeated until the deck was used up, although I think the guild issued more than a full deck of cards.

Here, in no particular order, is Sophie's quilt, and mine.

You can tell what the card was because we had to put the number and suit in the usual place for a playing card.

I saw a few other ones when we went in to drop the quilts off, and it's going to be a stunning exhibition.

This is only one small part of the exhibition, as there are also general quilts, which are judged under a whole range of categories, such as best use of colour, best appliqué, and so on.

Sophie and I both have another quilt to exhibit.

The exhibition opens on September 4 or 5, and will probably run for 10 days or so. I'll post the whereabouts closer to the time.

Flora's quilt

I have just spent the weekend in Nelson, at a Playcentre promotions team meeting. A side benefit of being away on 'business' was that I got to visit my friends there for dinner one night.

This was rather serendipitous timing, as Flora has had a significant birthday (one with a '0' on the end) a few days ago. She wasn't planning a party but this was a good opportunity to wish her many happy returns. (Just why you'd want to turn 40 many times over I don't know....)

Anyway, I made this quilt for her.

I bought the fabric with the little pictures of veges and herbs on it last year, thinking I would make something like this for Nick's birthday. (Nick is a serious foodie.) But he didn't have a party either (slack lot really!), so he missed out. This way he gets to look at the quilt too, so not all lost.

I cut out the motifs ('liberated' them, in quilter parlance), bordered each one, and then had the puzzle of fitting the odd sized blocks back together. Once I found a place to start it came together fairly quickly. I made the inner border like that because it was off balance visually before I did.

Flora was delighted!
Happy Birthday Flora.

Quilt show and sale

If anyone is in Wellington this week and wants an excellent, arty outing, I recommend the Quilt Show and Sale at shed 11 on the waterfront. It's on until Labour day, 10am-5pm each day.

It is an independent event, where every quilt is for sale, and is run in conjunction with the Wellington Quilters Guild. I had a turn on the raffle sales table yesterday.

It is beautiful! The quilts are all lovely, nice mood music, and a real atmosphere of excitement yesterday afternoon. This might have been because so many quilts were being sold, and people were so happy to be taking them home.

I have about 20 quilts as 'unfinished objects' (at some stage or other) but haven't actually sewn any for ages. (I am morally obligated to finish Rowena's birthday quilt before I start anything new - and I'm a bit stuck on it!) So I bought a little wall quilt to have something new.

March Quilt Guild

I ended up speaking at quilt guild tonight. The scheduled speaker was unfortunately sick, so, at the last minute, someone organised to have people speak about their local quilt groups. A couple of people had been primed ahead of time, but then others who were in groups were asked to get up and talk about their group. When the moment came it was either Dianne or myself!

We formed our group nine years ago this June. There are about 5 in the group at the moment, but it has been up to 10 at times. We meet on the first and fourth Thursday evenings of the month, either at peoples houses, or at the Resource Centre. I talked to a lady who wanted to join the group, and swapped phone numbers. We have made a lot of quilts over the years, but some years lately we seem to do more knitting than quilting. The trouble is that I don't have a hand quilting project that I just want to work on at the moment. I probably have a top I could baste (I have any number of UFOs - unfinished objects.) The best idea is to have a medium sized project that you keep in a bag and only take out when going to a meeting - that way you always have everything to hand.

Quilt guild tonight

Sophie and I have been to Quilt Guild this evening. Rose G did a presentation on how to recognise and date vintage fabric. From the way she talked it sounded like a treasure hunt - using clues from dress labels and old magazine ads to date particular bits of cloth. She certainly was enthusiastic about the sport.

I've put a random quilt of mine in above - mostly because I already have the pic on my computer.