A bit of a brag

I had a lovely surprise yesterday when I checked my emails. The quilt I had accepted for the NANZQ Illumination Challenge has sold at the gallery in Whangarei. I won't get the dosh until June of next year, but somehow that is secondary to the delight in knowing that someone values my work.
Thanks to all in NANZQ who work so hard to give us challenges to work towards.

Quilty Weekends

I have had two really great quilty weekends in a row. Last weekend was our club's mystery bus trip and this time I wasn't the organiser. So I got to sit back and enjoy (well, 'sit back' probably isn't quite the most accurate description since I was driving one of the mini buses and it was a manual gear change and the ladies started counting how many bunny hops I did!) The day was fantastic and the highlight was visiting Greit Lombard. She made us feel very welcome and gave us THE best afternoon tea. Thank you Greit, your generosity was awesome!

I didn't take my camera on the bus trip so I have no piccies - darn!

Today I visited the Taranaki P&Q annual show. I loved Sharon Duthie's quilt "Inner Peace Evolving to Chaotic Existence" which won first prize in the 'Log Cabin with a Twist (wall hanging section) challenge. It was beautifully, beautifully hand quilted. Here is a detail shot:
I thought is was a well-deserved winner. And, yes, I did remember my camera this time.

Back to the more mundane things. I have finally finished this scrappy strip pieced quilt which I started a couple of years ago. I am calling it God's Eye because it reminds me of the "woven on two sticks with any scraps of wool we could find" God's Eye's we used to make as children. I think they are American Indian in origin (but don't quote me. I've been known to be wrong before, vbg!)
Only a million more scraps to use up :-)

Still Back Blogging!

Here I am, blogging again - two posts in three days! Can I keep it up?
Hmmm . . .
Anyway, the club raffle quilt top is now finished (yeah!) and is ready to be sent away to the quilter. I am so glad I don't have to do that job :-)
I think this quilt will look great on someone's bed. I hope everyone we ask to buy a ticket does too.

It was our Mystery Bus Trip yesterday and we had a fantastic time. I'll post about it next time. Unfortunately yours truly forgot her camera so I am going to have to beg some photos from someone else, otherwise there will not be much eye candy.

Cheers!

Back to Blogging !!

Well, I have been a really hopeless blogger this year. My visitor stats have gone way down, as can only be expected when I don't blog for 6 weeks! I have actually been quilting and have a few things to show you but I will drip feed them otherwise it will be another 6 weeks before the next post.

I have just finished two weeks of school holiday and since the weather was horrible nearly the whole time it has been a perfect opportunity to quilt. I used the first week to cut pieces for Cotton On Quilters next raffle quilt. It is a design from an Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine Vol 16 #8, called Westward Ho! It was designed by Frances Leate. We emailed her to ask permission to use her design, which she willingly gave and it is a good thing she did because she alerted us to the fact that the templates for the design in the magazine had been reproduced at the wrong size. I'm not criticising the magazine at all. It is a huge task to publish patterns in a magazine and even when you think you've got it right it the gremlins can take over while you are not looking.

I organised the cut pieces into bags for people to sew into blocks and we made very good progress. The first picture is of the borders in progress:
And this is the body of the quilt:
We changed the centre block from the original design because we thought it had too much white space and it was an Ohio star, rather than a 54-40 or Fight star. We like the result. I have now put the borders on and I just need to put up my big design wall so I can take a decent photo of it. We will then send it away to be quilted. It is so good to have this done so far in advance of our next exhibition which is not until March 2011. I'm not working to such a tight deadline this time :-)