A Day Sailing on the Bay

The R Tucker Thompson is a tall ship that works out of Opua, where I live.  During the summer season they take paying guests for day and evening sails and they use this money to help subsidise youth training trips the rest of the year.

I was lucky enough to have a voucher for a Day Sail for two adults and two children so last weekend my Mother in Law, myself and the two kids made sail!

What a fantastic day!  The crew gets the guests really involved in the sailing of the ship.  The kids hauled ropes, climbed rigging and sat out on the bowsprit like pros.  To give you a bit of perspective, the top of the mast is 20 metres from the waterline.

The morning was spent sailing out through the Bay of Islands.  They gave us yummy cream scones for morning tea and then we anchored in a little bay and spent some time on a beautiful beach.  

I've taken the photo above from the dinghy, the person halfway up the rigging is my 8 year old daughter and my son is up on the yardarm - but you can't really see him.  I had the other guests commenting how brave they were but the kids just thought it was fun!

The Bay of Islands at it's best.  The beaches out in the bay are just gorgeous.

The Tucker is a traditional gaff-rigged schooner.  She's so pretty when you see her sailing around and sitting at anchor.

There was swimming and swinging to be done before a wonderful barbeque lunch.  The fresh air gives you a great appetite.  And they have drinks available for purchase, so you can have a glass of wine if you wish.

I was intrigued by the 'boat bits' as I called them.  Lots of weathered wood and copper and complicated knots, pulleys and bits and pieces.

My son is particularly keen to get back on board and go for one of the youth training week-long trips.  He has to be at least two years older, and he can't wait!  After he's done a trip like that, he can be a volunteer crew.  Because the Tucker is run by a trust, they use volunteers when they can.  One of our crew this trip was a 15 year old that the kids knew from their school.  And he was confident and competent - great to see.

Oh yeah, did I mention we saw dolphins too?!  So lucky!  We had a good breeze that was great for sailing, we had nice weather which made it pleasant and everyone had a fabulous time.  What a perfect day.

So, if you are ever up this way, check out the R Tucker Thompson and book yourself a day sail.  I would thoroughly recommend it

Interview with Mary Hawke - Best of Show Winner Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015

Mary Hawke was the proud winner of Best in Show at the Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015 with her quilt 'Dear Jane'.  A big thank you to Mary who spent half an hour of her time chatting to me about making 'Dear Jane', her love of small blocks, how she gets things done and lots of other quilty goodness.

'Dear Jane' was made from the book written by Brenda Manges Papadakis.  Brenda drafted the 225 block patterns from the original design of the 1863 Jane A. Stickle quilt and it has been immensely popular in the quilting world with hundreds of 'Baby Janes' being made in as many colour combinations and block arrangements as you can think of.

Mary stayed true to the original design of 'Dear Jane' and she also tried to keep the colours as close as possible to the original.  Her quilt was professionally quilted by her friend, Colleen Burr, who made a wonderful job of it.

Here is a link to the Dear Jane book on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Jane-Hundred-Twenty-five-Patterns/dp/1881588157

Here is a link to the Dear Jane website - there is so much information about making the quilt along with email lists for 'Janiacs', links to photographs of finished Dear Jane quilts and much, much more:  http://www.dearjane.com/newbie_info.htm

Here is a link to Linda Franz' instructions for scalloped borders and binding that Mary used to help her achieve such a perfect quilt: http://lindafranz.com/index.php?sectionId=38

This is Mary receiving her prize of a brand new Bernina sewing machine. Yay! Bernina!  Mary will make good use of this as her second machine, but she also loves her handwork.  Mary confesses to having made two Farmers Wife quilts from start to finish! 

The interview starts about half way through the audio.  To begin with I give you a run down on what's been happening in my quilting adventures, so if you are only interested in the interview with Mary, skip the first 30 minutes or so.

Here is the link to the tutorial on half-rectangle triangles that I talked about: http://athousandneedles.com/2014/05/tutorial-half-rectangle-triangles/

I hope you enjoy our interview and if you have made your own Dear Jane quilt, please give us a link in the comments so we can all admire your hard work. 

(I've been banging my head against the podcasting wall this week, and I can't get an audio player to embed and actually show up in my blog post - sorry!  So I've included links to listen in Podbean instead.)

http://theslightlymadquiltlady.podbean.com/e/interview-with-mary-hawke-best-in-show-winner-auckland-festival-of-quilts-2015/?token=72e07505c6838b8c416620a430372b10

Download this episode (right click and save)

For the love of books

I thought I'd share a few of the books that are gracing my bedside table at the moment.  

I've been searching for ways to capture light in my art and when I opened this book at my library I had to take it home.  Louis Comfort Tiffany - Masterpieces of Art, by Susie Hodge, describes the life and work of Louis Tiffany and then has pages and pages of images of his beautiful works in mainly stained glass.

I knew about Tiffany glass and lamps of course, but to see a whole collection of them in one book was eye-opening and inspiring.  If I can do just a little of what he does I'll be happy.

Te Hao Nui - The Great Catch.  Edited by Fiona McKergow and Kerry Taylor with photography by Michael Hall.   This is an intriguing book about the museum collection at Te Manawa, Palmerston North.  There are some delightful objects that have a history you'd never guess at.

And this pendant is just so beautiful.

This book was another in my search for light in my own work.  Light and Landscape, the New Zealand photographs of Andris Apse.  It is just glorious, page after page of wonderful photographs - sigh.  

Do you use books like these for inspiration?  

How to square up an art quilt

I had finished the quilting on this art quilt the other day, done my little happy dance and begun squaring it up when I thought I should record the steps to show you how I do it.

With a traditional quilt you usually have blocks or sashing to line up your edges with.  With an art quilt you may not have any straight lines at all.  But I usually have a horizon line, or a flying bird shape, or a vertical line that I can get my horizontal line from.  Luckily with this one I have a horizon line.  It is crucial that the horizon line is parallel to the top and bottom straight edges or it will look 'wrong' on the wall.

Of course, if you want your audience to feel unstable and unsettled when viewing your quilt then go for wonky horizons - but that's a whole 'nother post on how to convey emotions with art quilting!

Take your longest ruler and lay it so the edge lines up along your horizon line or another line that is meant to be horizontal. 

Use another ruler (I like my 12 inch square) to slide along your first ruler until you get to where you want your right hand vertical edge.  Hold it really steady and make your first vertical cut.  Now you have a straight edge to work off.

To get your bottom right corner, take your first ruler away, then slide your square up along your vertical straight edge, until you reach where you want to cut your bottom horizontal edge.  I put my large ruler back on top and realigned it with the horizon as a double check.  Cut your corner.  Now you have two straight edges and a 90 degree to work from.

Slide your square ruler left along your long ruler until you reach where you want to cut your second corner.  Hold firm and steady (this is no time to get ruler slippage) and cut again.  Now you a nice square bottom (ha!).

Working with your square ruler in the bottom right hand corner, use it and your long ruler to continue the right hand vertical edge.

Continue working your way around the quilt using both rulers to achieve square and straight edges and corners.  Use your horizon line, or whatever line on the quilt you first started with, to double check the everything is looking good.

And while you've been merrily cutting away, thinking you'd finished your quilt, keep an eye out for that one thread you missed when you were tying your ends in....there's always one more you didn't find!

And then once it's straight and square and looking pretty, it's time to put it back on the design wall and start auditioning for binding or a facing, or whatever you are using to finish your raw edge.

I hope that was useful and if you have any tips of your own to add I'd love to hear them.

Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015 - Instalment 2

Here is another lot of quilts from the Auckland Festival of Quilts.  This is a bit of an eclectic bunch, but once again, they caught my eye and I'll share why as we go. 

'Phoenix Rising' by Dianne Dowd, was made from a pattern by Cheryl Phillips.  Dianne made a stunning, very eye catching quilt with her fabric choices.  Her quilting, done on a domestic machine was very well done and she won Second Prize, Amateur Wall Quilt, sponsored by Fabric by Three.  

What also struck me about this quilt was the clever hanging mechanism that allowed a circular quilt to hang straight and flat.  You can see below that there is a piece of calico fabric attached to the back of the quilt.  The calico is then cut square at the top and has the hanging sleeve and velcro attached to it, making it easy to hang.  Brilliant!

'Old Library Door' by Ngaire Fleming.  Started in a class with Gloria Loughman.  This little wall hanging was just so nicely done.  There was attention to detail, a great use of perspective and perfect colour choices.  The quilt was square, it was just hung fairly high up and tricky for me to capture a good photograph.  It won Highly Commended, Amateur Wall Quilt, sponsored by Minerva and Auckland Quilt Guild.

This small quilt was made by Heather Bassett and began life as a curved piecing exercise.  I liked the use of solid coloured fabrics and, if you stood and looked at it for a while, the very subtle shift towards darker colours at the bottom of the quilt, which suggested a landscape to me.  The organic straight line quilting complemented the piecing well.  I've serendipitously found Heather's Instagram feed a day or two ago.  She is @hezbez13 if you want to see more of her work.

I think the colour scheme of this quilt caught my eye at first.  I'm partial towards pinks used in a darker way, rather than a 'little girl sweet' colour scheme.  'Butterflies' by Chris Behersing had a slightly chaotic feel that intrigued me and the use of many different prints and checks and all sorts of interesting fabrics all together made it feel as if it should have been a hot mess, but somehow it worked!

Alison Laurence is an accomplished art quilter and her clean style is once again evident in this piece,  titled 'Focus'.  The unusual viewpoint was fascinating, particularly when taking a photograph of the quilt.  The quilt was fairly large too, making the subject oversized and Alison's award, Judges Choice, sponsored by House of Patchwork, was well deserved.

I took a photo of these two quilts side by side to illustrate how a pattern can really be made your own by fabric choice and quilting design.  Both were titled 'The Caswell Quilt' and made from a pattern by Corliss Searcey.  The quilt on the left was made by Ann Gregory with needle turn appliqué and quilted by Jacqui Karl.  The quilt on the right was made with raw-edge appliqué by Betty McLean and quilted by Linda Young with embroidery by Heather Clark.

This is a closeup of the quilt on the right.  It won First Prize, Small Quilt Multiple Makers, sponsored by Quilt Shop Papamoa and Best Machine Appliqué or Embellishment, sponsored by Cottage Flair.

Here is a closeup of the quilt on the left.  It won the Best Amateur award.

And here's me!  With a cheesy grin next to my quilt 'Memories of Flight', which won a Highly Commended, Professional Wall Quilt, sponsored by Minerva and Auckland Quilt Guild.

Minerva is a textile bookshop that is on my bucket-list of places to visit.  Here's the link to check them out http://www.minerva.co.nz

Thanks Minerva and thanks Auckland Quilt Guild!