Quilt Symposium Manawatu finished last Wednesday, it was a week of learning, exhibitions, shopping, lectures and fun with friends.
I took two classes - the first was a 2 day class with Betty Busby painting silk. Fortunately there were only 7 of us in the class which meant we had plenty of space. I'd never tried painting silk before, the silk was easy to paint and we had a lot of fun. Everyone in the class produced amazing pieces. Now to find where to buy it. Betty is a great teacher and is also a fellow 'Redirecting the Ordinary' artist.
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| painted silk |
The second 2 day class 'Earth, Wind and Fire' with Rosalie Dace. I picked 'Wind' to create a peice based on wind blown trees. I'd taken along pictures of sunsets, trees, etc but on the day decided to tackle 'wind'.
There are some windblown trees near Foxton that seem to be going towards horizontal. The idea was not recreate an actual picture. I started on the left with piecing rectangles then sort of moved to piecing small pieces, including curves, a la Gwen Marston. It even has some silk from the previous class. Now to add more stitching, then quilt it.
These tutors were fantastic, thanks to Helen and her team for all their amazing work organising a great week of classes.
Back in 2010 my quilt 'Painted Chocolate Blocks' won a merit prize at Aotearoa Quilters Annual exhibition.
The prize was a $150 voucher from Tulis Batiks. I selected a range of mostly blue and brown batiks with a small amount of lime green ones. My original idea was a log cabin quilt, not a traditional style but more like Edwina Mackinnon with her Cut and Come Again quilts (click here to see one on Laura Kemshall's blog).
For some reason I was a bit intimidated by just having a go and trying this technique so I never did.
After attending Gwen Marston's class last year I looked at the collection of batiks again and thought maybe I could try a Gwen version of log cabin. I had made a 12by12 that I liked (see here). So off I went.
The first blocks were good, the ones with too much brown were ok-ish. When I put them together - hmm. Some quilting friends have made some polite (!) comments, the most useful being they need to be separated by filler blocks.
I've now quilted and bound my two little quilts from the Gwen Marston class (see here).
This one has a small amount of quilting and a narrow binding. It is a double binding and stitched at less than 1/4" with more folded to the back - if that makes sense.
With the second one I decided not to quilt it and just bind it. It does have a few feature (!) tucks and bulges. Hopefully I'll be able to remember the piecing techniques.
My first class was a two day class with Gwen Marston, Small Studies. It would have to be one of the best classes I've ever done. Gwen is such a generous teacher.
By morning tea we'd realised that Wellington had experienced a reasonable sized earthquake. The class was mostly people from the Wellington region so we got a range of updates.
By the end of the first day I'd completed a small piece.
It measures 18x25cm, so quite small!
I'd previously looked at Gwen's '37 Sketches' book and didn't think I needed to buy it, by morning tea on the first day I'd raced off to the Merchants Mall and purchased it.
While the book has mostly pictures, reading it is like have Gwen standing behind you and guiding you through the techniques.
Here is my second piece:
It started off very beige but the colour just kept on creeping in. It measures 19x22cm.
Gwen had an exhibition at the Taupo Museum featuring the quilts in her book as well as larger ones.
During the class she showed us some other quilts.
