Purple Zone

There's nothing like an exhibition to make you hurry up and finish a quilt. 

This recent finish is a combination of two Jen Kingwell designs. 

Back in 2019 I started Jen's Marshal Mystery Quilt published through QuiltMania.  I was very proud of my central motif when I finally got it to sit flat, but as time went on and more and more of the quilt got released, I didn't feel inspired to finish it according to the pattern.  

But I've always hung onto this centre piece and I knew I'd find a way to use it one day.  

Last year another Australian quilt designer, Chris Jurd came and spoke to our guild and taught some classes.  I loved Chris' show and tell and the stories behind many of of quilts.  I decided that my vision was too small and I needed to think BIG. 

So I dug out the centre of my Marshal Mystery Quilt and decided to applique it onto a back ground.  And because I'd been seeing a lot of lovely Daylesford quilts from Jen Kingwell's Quilt Recipe book, I decided to add some borders using Jen's method and mixing them up with a few blocks.

It was so liberating to just make a few blocks for the borders rather than thinking that I needed to carry the same design right around the quilt.  To top it all off I used Kaffe Fasset's Shiraz in Grey from my stash on the final border.  

Finally, because the hand quilting pile was growing bigger and bigger, and I wasn't even sure hand quilting would show up on this quilt, I took it to Sue B at Busy Bee Quilt Shop in Wellington and she worked her magic on it.  Thank you Sue!

As for the name? I'm continuing my theme of naming quilts after songs, and Purple Zone by The Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell gets a good thrashing in my car. It seemed an appropriate name for this guilt given how much purple is in it.    

I hadn't even seen the video until I went searching for this YouTube link, and it is a bit weird, but I love the chord progressions in this song so I'm sticking with it for the name of this quilt.  

Finished size 68" x 68"

PS - you may remember that I used some of the blocks I made for the Marshal Mystery Quilt in "We Built this City" which you can read about here. 

And, I still have 4 of these little hand pieced circle blocks from the Marshal Mystery Quilts that I may well use in the future. They were meant to be semi circles but I joined mine up to make circles. 

Watch this space. 

Capital Quilters Exhibition 11-12 May 2024

It's only one week until our exhibition!!!

It's going to be great because we have some very talented members at Capital Quilters.  I've entered seven quilts.  Yes, SEVEN. 

One is a 12" x 16" challenge, so that hardly counts.

Two you've possibly seen finished here on my blog or in person.

Two others you would have seen progress photos of, but not seen them finished.

And the final two are total surprises!! These are quilts that I've completed without showing them on social media at all.  Not even my friends know about them.  And I'm not going to give any clues now.

Centre - My Vibrant Curiosities. Best in Show at our 2018 Exhibition.

Right - my La Passacaglia 

I love walking around our exhibition and trying to guess who made the quilts before I read the tags.  People do have individual styles and I enjoy matching people to their quilts.  

If you live close to Wellington, please do consider coming.  Bring your mum for Mother's Day.  Or ask your kids to take you as a treat.  

The Lower Hutt Events Centre is a lovely modern facility with an on site cafe and we're going to have five merchants too.  

I can't wait!

Licorice Allsorts...again

Do you remember my Licorice Allsorts block of the month designed by Wendy Williams?

I barely remember it myself because it's been so long since I worked on it.

But last Saturday I made a quick trip to Auckland to support my mum for a few days.  As I was throwing a few things in a suitcase I suddenly remembered that she had asked for my help with some of the trickier blocks in this quilt. 

When I first saw this block of the month advertised at Material Obsession in 2021 I knew that we would both enjoy making it, so we both signed up.  Mum has finished all of the embroidered blocks but was struggling a bit with piecing the blocks due to the half square triangles and flying geese.   

By the time that I left Auckland I had trimmed and joined all of the blocks above and mum was so please to see it coming together.  She didn't want to give up on it, so was very happy to have some help in getting it together.  

Now I've bought the remaining blocks home and am going to join it all up for her.  Fortunately she's agreed to some modifications which will make the piecing easier.  Then I'll just post it back and she can do her own hand quilting.  

We even bought a lovely wide back for it and ordered some batting online. 

my finished quilt top - photo taken April 2023

It's only two weeks until Capital Quilters Exhibition at the Lower Hutt Events Centre.  Hopefully I'll see some of you there if you live close enough.  I've been working on my quilts and am looking forward to sharing them on my blog after the exhibition.  

My Easter break in Tekapo

At Easter I went to Tekapo in the middle of the South Island of New Zealand.  The mountains and lakes are amazing there and the weather was beautiful.  The place we stayed at had great views and a big deck off the lounge.  

I took some quilting along because our Capital Quilters exhibtion is fast approaching and I'm not ready!! I still have two quilts in progress and this is one of them.  It's the Trip Around the World that I started in January.  You can read more about it here.  

It's quite a bit colder in the South Island than the North Island and the trees were already starting to change colour for autumn.  

We went to Aoraki/Mt Cook while we were in Tekapo.  Mt Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain. 

We walked to the first swing bridge on the Hooker Valley Track, but everyone else had the same idea and it was very busy!

Lake Pukaki looked gorgeous on such a brilliant day. That's Mt Cook at the top of Lake Pukaki.

So that was Easter 2024 for me.  I'm now quilting every spare minute to get my quilts ready for the exhibition.  I'll have lots to share after that. 

Shades of Indigo

I'm busy finishing three new quilts for our Capital Quilters exhibition in May. Plus I want to enter at least one of the challenges.  So I'm quilting every day but I can't show you any of that just yet. 

However, in the evenings when I collapse into my chair I pick up my cross stitch and I've made good progress on Shades of Indigo by Nicole of Northern Expressions Needlework. 

There's just one more border to go now.

Of course mine isn't stitched with indigo threads.  I've chosen my favourite greens and blues.  The problem is that when you deviate from the pattern you have to make all the colour decisions yourself!

I started off with Caron Waterlillies, but I've morphed into Threadworx, Weeks Dye Works and Classic Colorworks Belle Soie.  I may have a lot of options but it's still trial and error because what looks good on the skein may not look so good on the fabric.  Last night I unpicked quite a bit of the next border because it just didn't look right.

The end is in sight now and it may even be finished in 2024.  I'm going to another cross stitch retreat in August and it would be embarrassing to bring out the same piece I worked on at retreats in 2022 and 2023.  

Pandemic Sampler

You probably thought you'd never see this day, but my Pandemic Sampler is fully finished and ready for framing!!

I had most of it finished in April 2022 (almost two years ago), but I still had all the back stitching to do, plus my initials - which were the real sticking point.  The back stitch took about a week of stitching just in the evenings.  The pattern is 20 pages of A4 paper so there was a fair bit to work through. 

My initials were an issue because "W"s are wide and I had to figure out how to fit them in.  In the end I came up with a dainty, subtle solution that I think works well. They're there, but they don't jump out at you.

I started this piece back in July 2020 when Long Dog Samplers released this pattern to commemorate the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The pattern is available for purchase here if you're interested.  

I used 28 count linen in Flax colourway because I didn't want to go blind stitching this.  Or give up because it was too hard to see what I was doing.  

I used 2 strands of Madeira silk and it was beautiful to work with, but definitely not cheap.  I possibly could have found cheaper silk alternatives, but my local embroidery shop had this in stock and ordering anything from overseas in the early stages of COVID was very unpredictable.  Things that previously took weeks to arrive were taking months or were just plain unavailable.  So I worked with what I could get and I'm very happy with the result.  

There's a lot of flurry going on in the Long Dog Sampler Facebook groups about Leap Day starts for 29 Feb 2024.  I've resisted all temptations and will continue to work on my WIPs in 2024.  

I have made one small new start since I finished Pandemic and I'll show you that in my next blog post. 

Capital Quilters' Exhibition

I've got exciting news to share.  Capital Quilters are having an exhibition in May 2024 in Lower Hutt. 

It's going to be on Saturday 11 May and Sunday 12 May which is also Mothers' Day.  Wouldn't be lovely to take your mum to a quilt show on Mothers' Day? You can look at the quilts together and then stop in at the on-site cafe for a bite to eat. 

Of course we're going to have merchants too so you'll have to allow time for shopping too.  

The Lower Hutt Events Centre is the lovely modern facility where we've held our exhibition twice before, and where the Symposium exhibition was held in October 2022.

I'm busy planning my entries now.  Each guild member is allowed to enter as many quilts as they wish, but entries will be scaled back if too many entries are received.  All quilts must have been completed since our last show in October 2020.  

I've got 3 quilts that are still WIPs.  Will I be able to get them finished in time? I'm not sure. 

We've also got two challenges running so I'm thinking about what I'm going to do for them.  I always like seeing mini quilts hung together and especially when they've got a common theme.    

So, there's a lot happening.  I encourage to visit the show if you possibly can.  The Capital Quilters exhibition back in July 2014 is what got me enthused about quilting.  I wasn't a member of the guild then but I walked around the freezing school hall and was amazed at the quilts on display.  Now I look back at those photos and I know all the makers and I am a member of Capital Quilters myself, 

(PS - our venue won't be cold - it will be warm and welcoming)