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?!

Further Feathers

After my last post with my feather quilts, my good friend Suz pointed me in the direction of Michele Hill's blog and this post:

 http://williammorrisandmichele.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/textile-talent-in-south-australia.html

It's a post about a textile art exhibition that was held in Michele's town and it includes some beautiful feather quilts by quilt artist Julie Haddrick.

So then I went to the google machine and typed in 'feather quilt'.

Look what I found!  This is a quilt kit sold by Anna Marie Horner and you can buy it here.

I obviously live with my head under a rock because there were HEAPS of these feather quilts floating round the interwebbies.  Beautiful, and each version was a little different in it's own way.

Of course I found lots of images of feather free motion quilting and feather duvets (mmm, snuggly), and some lovely bedding with peacock feathers all over it.



There was this beautiful circa 1860 antique quilt for sale at an interesting site called 1stdibs.  I got lost there for a while in the beautiful antique quilts...go look and wonder at the skills of our foremothers.




And then there was this little beauty from littlemushroomcap.blogspot.com

I believe Amira made it for a mini quilt challenge.  Isn't it a cutie?  She has a nice blog, so hop on over and have a look.

Then, oh my, I found The Magic Feather Project.  Jude Hill started stitching feathers and many people sent there own little stitched feathers to her as a collective stitching project for creative sharing and giving.  She intended to try and put them together for use as a charity project.

There is a set of photographs of the feathers on Flikr.  Click here to go and view them, please go, they are SO beautiful.  They are mostly embroidered.  I think I could actually contemplate embroidery if mine ended up looking like these.

And for those who foundation piece (by the way I bow down to you in homage), there is this (scarily intimidating for me) feather block pattern.



Designed by Shape Moth who has a list of jaw-dropping paper pieced patterns that if you are into them, you need to check them out.  She also has tutorials and free patterns on her blog too.

So it seems I'm not the only one who likes feathers...just thought you should know!

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....