Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015

Hopefully I'm going to just get my entry in to the Blogger's Quilt Festival in on time!

I promised more details about my recent blue ribbon winner (yes, I'm still excited about it!), so here it is.

For Blogger's Quilt Festival viewers and anyone else new to my blog, I made this quilt for a competition, the Dorothy Collard Challenge. This is an annual competition with a theme and attracts entries from Auckland Quilt Guild's amazing artists. It's the first time I've entered so you can understand why I'm so excited!

The theme this year was My impression of a book by a New Zealand author. I chose to portray Patricia Grace's book "Tu".

I've lived in New Zealand for 20 years now, originally from Scotland via many different places - but that's another story. When I first read a short story by Patricia Grace, I felt like I was hearing the Maori voice for the first time. I loved her writing. This particular book, "Tu", is about three brothers joining the Maori Battalion during World War II and going to Italy but unfortunately only one brother returns. Uncle Tu, the surviving brother, has his war story dragged out of him by nieces and nephews. At least that's what it appears to be about...

What struck me about this book was why all these young men joined up in the first place to fight for a country they knew nothing about. A sense of duty to Britain? That seems unlikely. Was it looking for adventure? Or was it that they felt unsettled in the increasingly European (Pakeha) urban life that was becoming the norm. I think it was a bit of both of those last two. And so they set off to war, terrible things happened and some good things. They were away so long that they ended up integrating into Italian life, learning to speak Italian, drink wine and experience a different way of life. Some fell in love and brought their Italian brides back to New Zealand. Others may have left some slightly darker children back in Italy. Eventually, those that survived came back home. But they had changed and where they used to struggle to fit into Pakeha society, now they didn't fit in to the Maori community either.

I wanted to show that cultural struggle in my quilt. I started by researching the battle at Monte Cassino where a lot of young Maori men lost their lives. The Allies bombed the Abbey of Monte Cassino, believing that the German forces were occupying the monastery. They found out afterwards that there were no Germans, only monks. It was a terrible tragedy and shouldn't have happened. It struck me that this was a offense to culture and a good start for my quilt.

Here is the base layer of the quilt with the ruin of the Abbey.

 

The insignia of the 28th Maori Battalion had to feature on this quilt too. The original insignia has two fern fronds making the wreath but a later insignia for the Maori Battalion Association is a more stylised fern. I used this as my basis for my stamp, carved out of 6 regular erasers.

I wanted one good stamp in the corner and then faint ones dotted over the quilt, like they're floating away to signify the erosion of the Maori culture.




















I meant to take a photo of each stage but I got a bit carried away at this point. In the photo above I've also added the charred trees (made out of paper, organza and Lutradur) either side of the road leading up to the monastery and started the stencil of a man doing a haka (Maori war dance). I took this photo below which is actually the 28th Maori Battalion in Egypt (www.28maoribattalion.org.nz, used legally!), and used software to change it to black and white.



I just think that image of the man is so powerful that I can almost hear him shouting!

The quilting is fern fronds and then a wreath at the bottom - to echo the insignia or is it a wreath? You decide!

And here it is again with its ribbon.  Thank you for reading this far and I hope you are inspired to search out Patricia Grace's books.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

This is my entry for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival run by Amy of Amy's Creative Side. I'm entering this quilt into the wallhanging category. 

I'm in good company in the wallhanging category. Rhianon from Nifty Stitcher got in early. Rhianon does the most amazing work! It was less than 2 years ago she was complimenting me on my quilting and saying that she was starting free-motion quilting. Now it's me trying to emulate her quilting. I wanted the nice buttery quality that Rhianon manages to get in her feathers. Getting there.

I've also quilted a motto on this quilt. Maybe I should tell the story behind it.

Our local quilt guild put out a challenge to make a quilt representing your favourite charity. I didn't need to think twice. I am so impressed with the work that the hospice do. My Dad died of cancer almost 5 years ago. He never stayed at the hospice but the nurses came out to him. So I didn't actually see the inside of the hospice until after he died when we were invited to be part of a fund-raising project at Mercy Hospice in Auckland. Mum and I were given a tour. I always thought that hospices were places where people died. Their motto is 'Living every moment' and that's what we found out on our tour. It's all about living, even those last moments. We saw their very clever bath where patients can be helped into with the greatest of ease and then sat up with a beautiful view out the window to the gardens. At hospice, having a bath isn't about bathing but an opportunity to enjoy a moment of life. We were also told about the amazing work that volunteers do, coming in for beauty sessions etc.

The logo for the hospice group is the yellow kowhai flower, a native tree in New Zealand. I've made it by drawing up a large paper foundation pattern on freezer paper. The middle section is just over 18", the width of freezer paper, then I added the yellow and green borders. All the green fabrics are from a batik pack I bought at fabric-a-brac, a fundraising event run by the hospice every year. I'm going to give the quilt to the hospice. It's funny to think they're going to get their fabric back!

I've very pleased with this quilt. I love the batiks. I couldn't find a variety of yellow batiks but the prints and yellow solid go well with the batiks. The paper foundation method is easy and very versatile. This is definitely a technique I will use again. And finally I like the way the feathers all fit into each other. I've made this so it can be used as a lap quilt so I haven't done any dense quilting with stippling between the feathers so they had to cover the entire quilt. That turned out to be easier than I expected. I'm not sure what the hospice will do with the quilt, sell it, use it or display it. I don't mind. I made it for them as a thank you for the care they showed to my Dad.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

It's time for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. So many quilts to look at and new quilters to follow - and possible new friends too. Click on the link above or the button at the bottom of this post for the festival.

My entry is the first painted quilt I did using LuAnn Kessi's technique. This is my nephew, my daughter and her husband. I love this little quilt!

Things I learnt while making this piece:

• less is definitely more. Stop when you still think you have more to add and it will look just right.
• Curls don't need to be painted. An impression of curly hair is enough
• lips are only dark in the corners
• in fact, the main thing I learnt was to really look at the photograph and see where to apply highlights and shadows
• let your paint dry before adding the shadows. It makes it less muddy looking.
• Blonde hair that has darkened to a fair brown is really difficult to replicate!
• The flange border (the cream bit) makes a good frame but remember to allow for seam allowance and the depth of the flange when trimming the painting square.

This is the original photo after I had manipulated it in FastStone. It printed out a little lighter than this. I think I would have preferred it darker and I have tried darker prints since then with interesting results. They look a little freaky before painting!
I print on to a piece of fabric ironed to the back of an A4 sheet of freezer paper. My printer only goes up to A4 which limits the size. I have access to an A3 printer so I may do some bigger ones soon.

As you can see, I only really quilted the background and the border. I outlined the main shapes with coloured thread.

Have a look at the festival by clicking on the button below.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time of year again - time to see lots of lovely quilts over at Amy's. Click on the button on the left to see the show.

Highland Dancing Fairy

I made this quilt for my niece just because I had given her brother a quilt. My nephew is mad keen on the Beatles and I found some Beatles fabric so I had to buy it. Then you can't give one a quilt and not give the sibling a quilt too. This was supposed to be a simple wallhanging. I didn't intend to make this as complicated as I did but as the idea grew, so did my excitement level. Funnily enough, this quilt is the one that more people find by searching the web. Who knew that highland dancing fairies were so popular! 

This is my niece with her quilt and showing her moves. 

 Our family is originally from Scotland. I moved to New Zealand 17 years ago and my brother moved to Australia more recently (I can't remember when but when the kids were small). My brother and his son are in the local pipe band and my niece has given up ballet and taken up Highland dancing. I guess they miss Scotland more than I do! I didn't even put tartan in this quilt! Mind you, I thought that a fairy would wear a tutu and not a kilt so I made her a tutu. It even sticks out from the wallhanging.

 She has a real pom-pom on her tam 'o shanter.

and gossamer wings.

 

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

I'm entering 'Boy George' in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

I made this quilt in 2000 for a CC Ward Challenge. CC Ward is a department store in New Plymouth. They used to have a fabric and haberdashery department but I think that's gone now. Every year they would have a quilt challenge and in this year the challenge fabric was a jungle fabric with tree frogs and chameleons. I had been reading Libby Lehman's book 'Threadplay'. I liked her idea of applying one simple quilt to another using reverse applique. I took my cue from the fabric and made a chameleon hiding in the quilt. I made two quilt tops with the same fabrics and turned the chameleon one at 45 degrees. A bit of threadpainting and the red appliqued to his back helped show him up.

The name came about because I kept on singing Boy George's 'Karma Chameleon' when I was making it.  But then I thought, 'How appropriate!' Boy George, the singer, was very flamboyant but he hid behind all his costume. My chameleon was hiding in all the richness of the fabric.

This quilt is very special to me because it was a lot of firsts.

• It was the first time I made a quilt in less than a year (4 weeks!)
• It was my first non-traditional quilt
• My first threadpainting
• My first machine quilted quilt
• My first competition entry 
• And my first win! I won an award which was worth $25. I was so chuffed!