BLUE Challenge quilts

Sue from ratherbequilting, asked to see finished photos of some of the bird and feather quilts I posted about way back here.

She's in luck because today I got photographs of my two BLUE challenge quilts emailed to me from the lovely Anne at Aotearoa Quilters.  Something happened to my pictures of the finished quiltlets and I emailed Anne, who received all the quilts for exhibition.  She obliged my humble request and sent me through pictures of both of them.

This one was titled (imaginatively) 'Blue Feather'.  It's looking a little squashed from it's journey and in hindsight, I think some quilting on the white background would have helped, but at the time I was loathe to disturb the simplicity.  You live and learn I suppose!

And this one was titled (I think!  Yikes, bad quilt documenting, slapping my own wrists!) 'Spring Flight'.  It is actually pretty square, it's just a slight angle on the photo.

The BLUE challenge received 95 quilts from all over the country and is currently on show at the Christchurch Quilt and Craft Fair (last day tomorrow) and then in a week or so will be at the Palmerston North Quilt and Craft Fair.  All quilts are for sale for $125.

I copied this straight from Aotearoa Quilter's Facebook page:

"And the Winners are:
1st - Mary Transom "Blue Girl"
Merits:
Gloria Scanlen "The Guiding Light"
Shirley Sparks "Summer Holiday"
Ella Brockhuizen "Violin Blues"
Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all who entered. Special thanks to Cecile at Unique Stitching for sponsoring the Challenge."

Here's a link to the Unique Stitching website, they have some pretty awesome stuff to play with!

PS - thanks for all your kind comments on my podcast!  I think I sound funny - but your own voice is always weird to yourself, right?!

Drawing and Quilting Birds - my feather fetish (let's see how many hits I get from that title!)

I've put down the UFO's for a little while and I'm working on a few new projects.  I've been mulling over thoughts for a while and then it's like they all collide and I'm away again, inspired and enthusiastic!

This swallow quilt is a what I'm working on today.  It's going to end up as 12" by 12" and will probably be an entry into the BLUE challenge that is being run by Aotearoa Quilters.  You can read more about it here.  It's open to non-members too, so go have a read.

This is a two layered quilt, with a cotton broadcloth base and a silk organza overlay.  I've mono-printed both layers, with a freezer paper mask in place over the swallows.  I've then painted the swallow on the top layer and worked them in coloured pencil on the base layer.

My coloured pencil work is a follow on from this experiment I did the other day.  I worked the Tui (a native New Zealand bird, pictured here puffed up in full song) from a photograph taken by my talented cousin.  You can see his work here on Flikr, he's dazzla65 - go check him out, he's amazing!

The top photo shows the 'before' version, before I painted over the coloured pencil with fabric medium.  It worked so well that I can't wait to use the technique in more quilts.  

This feather piece measures about 20" by 30" and it's work towards a challenge run by the Auckland Quilt Club.  It has a spine now, which makes it look better and now I'm debating on how to do the quilting.

I tried out some quilting ideas on this little piece.  The feather was drawn using Neocolor water-soluble pastels then painted over with fabric medium.  I've trimmed and bound it now and even added a label and hanging sleeve (I usually procrastinate over those tasks!) and it's another contender for entering into the 12 x 12 BLUE exhibition.

So can you see the theme?  I'm guessing I like birds....