Donna Ward Best in Show Winner on The NZ Quilt Show Podcast

After the last podcast episode with Brenda Gael Smith, the chief judge of The NZ National Quilt Symposium 2017, and listening to her discuss the exhibition judging and the Best in Show winner, I thought the next interview to post should be with the lucky winner herself so we could get her take on her prize-winning work.

Donna Ward (R) and her daughter, Ashleigh.

Donna Ward was the Best in Show winner at symposium with her quilt 'Fly'.  Donna owns Donna's Quilt Studio in Hamilton with her daughter Ashleigh (who you will hear mentioned in the podcast), and she is a delight to talk to.  Her excitement at winning was infectious and you can hear the huge smiles we were wearing as we talked!

To see a better image, head over to the Symposium website by clicking here.

Donna also won the Best Piecing award with her english paper pieced quilt 'Chasing Rabbits' and 'Fly' won the merit award in this category.

To see a better image, head over to the Symposium website by clicking here.

Donna has some exciting news that I didn't get to share on the podcast.  Ashleigh and Donna are running a Quilting Spectacular Tour next year - a month long trip to the UK to visit the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, including a class at the Royal School of Needlework, a visit to the V and A Museum, a week long cruise on the Danube, and so many other visits and delights you'll just have to head over to the website to read them for yourself!

It sounds like an amazing trip and if the kids were older and not eating me out of house and home, I'd have already signed up!

This is just a short episode.  I am planning to combine some of my other short symposium interviews but I thought this one should stand on it's own.  Congratulations to Donna!


Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast and helps me tell the stories of our quiltmakers, artists and professionals.  If you would like to support me, head over to iTunes and leave a five star review, pop over to my podbean hosting site and leave a donation, or consider advertising your business by sponsoring an episode.  Email me at theslightlymadquiltlady@gmail.com  Cheers!



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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

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Interview with Melanie Martin, Best of Show winner, Manawatu Quilt Symposium 2015

Melanie Martin won Best of Show at the Manawatu Quilt Symposium 2015.  She was absolutely gobsmacked and after the awards ceremony I came across her sitting there stunned with her friends happily congratulating her.  I took the opportunity to ask Melanie for an interview, and while she was too overwhelmed to answer, her friends kindly agreed on her behalf!

Is is Art? Best of Show, Manawatu Quilt Symposium 2015, by Melanie Martin

Melanie discusses what this quilt is about and what it means to her.  We chat about her journey into quilting, her 'year of challenges' and where to from here.

We talk about another of her quilts, and you can see the Aotearoa Quilters Growth Challenge gallery here.  Melanie's quilt is called 'Under Construction'.

I can't find the exact Michael James quote that I talked about, but here's another good one from him that fits in really well with what Melanie and I talked about:  

“Quiltmaking has historically been an art of conformity. I think it’s high time that we relegate that fact to quilt history, and move this art form fully into the 21st century where it should take its place alongside other exploratory and creative media.”

Thanks to Melanie for her time.