Online Contest - Voting Now

I just can't resist it! I've entered the Quilting Bloggers Weekly Themed Quilt Contest - again!
I entered this quilt into the contest - it's the group exchange quilt contest:

This was part of the S.I.X. block exchange this year. It is titled Steam-punk Time Machine. If you wish to look at the other entries and vote, go here. Scroll down to vote.
You have until Monday, 1 October 8:00am (EDT) to cast your vote (you can have 4 choices).

An Online Class

I've just done an online class with Cindy Needham (Wholecloth Linen Quilts) through Craftsy. It was an excellent class to take and I can fully recommend it. In this set, Design It, Quilt It, there were 11 lessons, all videos ranging in length from 10 minutes to 47 minutes. Plus Cindy answers your questions, as well as a class platform, where everyone in the class gets to ask or shoe their work.
With some advice from Cindy, I have just finished re-working one of my Celebration Challenge quilts. I wasn't entirely happy with the whole-cloth quilted one, especially 3 of the borders. But I practiced, changed my sewing foot, and now it is completed!

Yay!!

Challenges Revealed

I can post photos of my challenge entries in the Rose City Quilters Celebration of Quilts. Our 30th anniversary. My first quilt had a background, a la Gloria Loughman, and oyster shells handmade from a brown paper bag. It is titled: A Pearl for Me ... and the artist's statement went: ... and a pearl for you! Beach combing at it's finest!

The sponge is made from some French knitting I had lying around - it just needed a little painting for correct colour!
I won  Merit ribbon for this entry!
My other entry is titled: Celebrating 30 years of Quilting. The artist's statement went: Take a piece of plain cotton, or leftover party dress fabric, a straight stitch, decorative thread and a pleasing design. Enjoy the transformation!
Arum lilies on the right hand border, roses in the bottom, and one of the Maori designs is called Kano which means 'seed', so I stitched pearls in each.

Celebrating 30 years of Quilting

Reverse - stitched on cotton

The top border has a couple of fantails sitting on a branch of kowhai, the large Maori design on the left is called Raranga which means weave, and the other design is called Manawa, which means heart. I quilted it with green variegated rayon, because green is supposed to be the colour for 30th anniversary (along with pearls and lily).
My quilting colleague Liz also won a Merit for one of her entries (she is in the Advanced category), and my friend Lynette won first prize for her entry in the Intermediate category. Congratulations, lovely ladies!

Challenging Work!

Phew! it seems I've been away for a while. But no, I have been working on two challenge entries for this weekend's Celebration of Quilts in Palmerston North. Unfortunately I can't show you my entries just yet, but I will say that I used some designs on one of them from these two books.
I purchased them second hand and just love the New Zealand-ness of the designs!