SAQA Oceania Blog Hop for this week

22 July                  Lisa Repsevicius            SAQA Oceania blog

24 July                  Averil Stuart-Head          avesrave.blogspot.com 

26 July                  Mel Forrest                     mixedmediabymelforrest.com
 
28 July                  Brenda Gael Smith         serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog

For the complete Oceania Collection Blog Hop timetable.

Back from Taupo

Just back from Taupo and the quilt symposium.  This may take several posts to cover a great week.

Left Wellington last Wednesday with a fun stop on the Desert Road. 

The road had been closed a day or so before.  Just a tad cold but so much fun.

 

Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro

Mt Ruapehu

 Arriving in Taupo ...

The symposium started on Thursday with registration.  Great fun catching up with friends and people I hadn't seen for ages.  The merchants mall was open and a bit of shopping was done.  




 





Had to do the touristy thing and visit Huka Falls. 

 








View of Huka Lodge across the river. 
 









In the evening was the opening and awards ceremony. A later post will detail the classes and the exhibitions.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Coming soon - SAQA Oceania Blog Hop

As I mentioned here and here I have a quilt in the 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction (auction starts 9 September, see here for more info.) 

The Oceania Collection are the 12x12" works donated by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) members in the Oceania region (mostly Australians).   

Follow the Oceania Collection Blog Hop to get a peek into the work of each artist.  

The blog hop starts next Tuesday (16 July) with Sue Dennis and ends on 6 September when I will be posting about my piece 'Fishnets'.   

In Print

The latest edition of NZ Quilter magazine arrived on Saturday.

I'd been waiting for its arrival as I was looking for the registration form for the 2015 Symposium in Palmerston North.  Quickly filled it in, wrote the cheque and popped it in the post.

The reason to get in quickly is to get a low registration number which then means (hopefully!) a better chance of getting into class/es of choice - usually with an overseas tutor.  It does seem a bit odd given that the Symposium is 18 months away and this years starts next week.

Anyway turning to page 1 to see:

 
'Chained' is part of Aotearoa Quilters' Connections exhibition that has been touring New Zealand.








More excitement when getting to page 26 to see:

'Colourful' is part of NZ Quilter and Nutex's Colours of New Zealand touring exhibition.







While I've had quilts exhibited throughout New Zealand and overseas, these are my first quilts to be hung at Minerva, here in Wellington.

Wordless Wednesday

Jeannette deNicolis Meyer class

Back in April our guild organised a one day class with Jeannette deNicolis Meyer.  

I've admired her work ever since she had an exhibition 'Speaking in Cloth 6 Quilters 6 Voices' at Taia Gallery (predecessor to Minerva) with 5 other quilters. 

The class was called 'Circles and Curves'.  I've avoided sewing curves as I thought I couldn't get them accurate enough.  With Jeannette's well explained and quite simple techniques I was off.  Sewing freehand curves and circles was easy - sort of.

Her hint for moving the needle position and using the edge of the foot as a guide so the seam allowance is smaller than 1/4" made sewing the curve easier and more accurate as there was less fabric to get in the way - if that makes sense.

I never quite learn - I took some smallish pieces of hand-dyed fabric and quite liked what I created - but now don't have anymore to make the piece larger.  Unless this becomes the centre piece and the rest is slightly different ...

Wordless Wednesday

Solander Gallery

Last week, I spent an amazing two hours at Solander Gallery.  

Friends of Te Papa organise various talks, presentations, etc which are usually held at Te Papa.  The visit to Solander Gallery was part of their 'Walking Tours of Local Dealer Galleries' series. 

Vincent Drane (Solander Gallery director and artist) trained in Melbourne as a print maker, he enthusiastically guided us through the various forms of printmaking.  

He had a couple pieces of A5 sized plastic that we could dry etched designs onto.  Some people did some really fine drawings, like a cat.  I tried leaves, grasses and random quilt patterns. 

The print from our etching/scratching ... 

... not overly exciting but it did give me ideas for future projects ...


I'm now investigating Japanese vinyl, which is the next step up from lino.  The vinyl can be cut on both sides and doesn't bend like lino when it is wet.