Feeling a wee bit famous

I got my issue of the New Zealand Quilter magazine (a pretty good issue this quarter too!).

And I was pretty excited to see my quilt, 'Tui at Dawn' featured on page 20!  I knew it was going to be in there as I had to send my quilt to them to be photographed, but I didn't think it was going to be a nice big picture like it is.  Shirley Dixon writes a great article about quilts with a distinct NZ flavour and I guess mine fits right in.

Now who thinks my photos are crooked?  They're not, it's just an optical illusion created by having the subject of both photographs tilted at the same article.  If I was a perfectionist I'd go retake them to get them either at alternate angles or straighten them right up.  I'm not a perfectionist, so you get to marvel at tricks of vision and perception!

Tui at Dawn

As promised, here is my prize-winning (you have no idea how cool it is to write that!) quilt, Tui at Dawn.  As you can see, it isn't a huge work, 79 cm by 49 cm.

My quilter's statement: "The morning mists change colours, perspectives, outlines.  Things become ghostly and otherworldly.  The wingbeats of Tui echo and their ethereal song is haunting, as if from another time altogether."

I began with a layer of fabric strips fused onto a background fabric.  Then I painted some elements onto this background mainly using freezer-paper stencils.  There is also one raw-edge appliqued Tui.  I used a silk organza top layer and stencilled other elements onto this and painted it also.  The sun is a separate piece of hand-painted silk organza slipped in between the background and top layer and there is some netting slipped in there too.  It was then machine quilted on my domestic machine.

Here it is on my design wall when I was playing with placement of birds and sun.  You can see that I actually reversed the top layer to fly some of the birds the other way.

And a couple of detail shots for you.

I'm home safe and sound now from the Taupo Symposium Fibre Art Festival, after been woken at 2.45am on my last morning by a bit of an earthquake!  Nothing like Wellington has been experiencing I'm sure, but it was enough to get the heart beating a little faster.

I've hugged the kids, unpacked my fabric splurges and left the unpacking of my suitcase for another day.  And now I'm going to have a cup of tea with a couple of quilty friends who didn't get to the Symposium.

I'll do another post tomorrow, hopefully with my other quilt that was accepted and the little red 12 x 12 quilts.  See you then!

Gobsmacked!

I am truly on a high! Tonight was the awards ceremony at Taupo Symposium and I was blown away to be up on stage twice.  My Tui at Dawn quilt won a merit award in the art quilt section and I also one the First Time Entrant award!

Talk about a rush!  I got all blushy and giggly and so many people congratulated me afterwards, it was absolutely amazing.

Thanks to Karamu Quilters and Cushla's Village Fabrics for my wonderful prizes.  And I would add a photo here of my great big box of goodies, except I'm posting this from my iPad and I can't figure out how.  So once I do, except a goofy photo of me next to my ribbons!

Happy Dance!

I got notice today that both my quilts that I submitted for the Taupo Symposium exhibition have been  accepted!  Woot, woot!

It was my goal to have at least one quilt accepted at one of the major exhibitions in New Zealand this year - and now both have been so I'm over the moon!

To see the whole quilts you'll need to visit the exhibition.  It's the Horn Cabinet Quilt Exhibition Taupo 2013 at the Taupo Symposium 2013 Fabric Art Festival held 18th to 23rd July at the Great Lake Centre, Tongariro Street, Taupo.

I'll be lurking in the background like a proud Mama.....

Tui at Dawn

I'm quilting another quilt at the moment.  It's another one that I'm hoping to have accepted for the Taupo Symposium exhibition.

Consequently, I can't show it to you besides these little peeks!

It's called Tui at Dawn.  Do you think I've got the colours and feeling right?