The members of COOTs were issued with a wee challenge by a local quilt shop, Christofer Robyn Quilts, to use a piece of Kraft Tex and make something and present it at our August meeting. I immediately thought I would make a box – but then thought no, thats what everyone else would make so I made a concertina ‘book’ and put it inside a gift box (we get given beautiful cheese every christmas by one of our subcontractors and the boxes are too lovely to throw away). Here are the photos of what I produced. I didn’t like the colour of the kraft tex so spray painted it, stencilled it, used matte medium and shellac on it – and it held up well, didn’t distort or change its hand in any way.

Seems to be a time at the moment for making leaving gifts. A friend is leaving Queenstown and moving to Dunedin, we will miss her from our wee group, so made her a sketchbook bag to hold her moleskin journal and other arty things.

I have been very humbled to have had my ‘I am from …’ quilt accepted to travel with some others to represent New Zealand at World Quilts. The New Zealand quilts are co-ordinated by Helen Marshall, here is a link to her site showing the Quilts that went this year. And there is the website that shows all the venues that my lady will travel to.

This was Marie from Ashburton, you can see the photograph she was working from in the lower left hand corner.

This was my piece, it was from a photograph I took in Monterosso, Italy, through an archway.

Jenny showed us a wee trick that she uses when doing these type of quilts. She took a piece of paper (about A5 size) folded it in half and cut the smallest hole in it. Below that she cut another hole slightly bigger. You then put the small hole over the part of your photograph to get the exact colour you need and place the proposed choice of fabric under the bigger window to see if it really is the right colour. Hard to explain in words but such an effective tool. here is a pic illustrating this.

The top hole is over the part of the photograph I want to match the fabric to and the bottom hole is my fabric. What you think the colour is and what the colour actually is, is quite a surprise.

The second class was Shimmering Triangles and it really challenged me because I am not a mathematical person and it was all working out how and what fitted where!! Not really my cup of tea but I so admire those who make these quilts.
Here it is in the beginning stages, using Kaffe Fasset fabrics, yum.

Gloria Loughman is an amazing tutor, her classes always fill first at any symposium.

Pam Holland

Jenny Bowker.

Here are other links to blogs showing more about the Symposium/ specifically exhibitions:
Marion Manson
Razzle Dazzle
All of Me

Every two years we have a quilt symposium in New Zealand. In 2013 it was held in Taupo. Quilters from around the country converge on the host city and prepare for a week of exhibitions, classes, lectures, happy hours, and general socialising with each other.

I submitted four quilts to the Symposium exhibition an was very fortunate to have all four accepted. This posed a bit of a dilemma for me as I had sold one of the quilts at the COOTs exhibition in April. O NO – so I had to get going and make another one. Of course the second one (in my opinion) was not quite as good as the first one. But still such an honour to have it shown at a National Exhibition.