Funky Christmas Tree

Just finished this wall-hanging. It was quilted as an example of layering the quilting designs, from the Cindy Needham class on Craftsy. If I was to do anything different, I wouldn't quilt the 'tree' so much then it would 'pop' better, otherwise it's quite nice. I also did the same design but with straight vertical lines - that one looks minimalist and modern.
Here's Funky:

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!

Landscape Quilt Completed

I finished my Gloria Loughman landscape quilt, which was started in a workshop 2 weeks ago. I don't 'do' landscapes because I want them to be realistic, so this was an exercise in dealing with something almost abstract.  I didn't have an actual picture of my landscape, so I think it helped me be less perfect in the design. I took photos of some of the aspects, but overall it was a memory picture.
Also, I had wanted to use what I learned in class in another of my ANZAC banners (as boring as it is to many people it may not be every one's cup of tea, but to me, there are many stories to be told).
When I attended this year's ANZAC dawn service at our local military camp, Linton (and also my workplace), I watched the sunrise through one of the Camp's many huge palm trees. There was also a very tall soldier standing in front of me, so I got his silhouette and the tree with the sun lightening the sky over the Tararua Ranges.
Here we have it:

Here is a close-up of the soldier - to ensure that the lightness of his face didn't distract too much, I covered the fabric with fine tulle.

Most of the green fabric has been painted with fabric paint - I needed to get a variation for depth of field.
All I need now is a title.
Any one have any ideas?

A Knitted Cowl for Winter

I knitted up this cowl for Sarah for Wellington's winter.

I used a ply of 8ply pure wool and a single ply of silk. The pattern is a leaf design by Emily Kausalik and I got it from Ravelry (this is a free site to join, and some of the patterns are free - such a great range!). The cowl still needs to be blocked (it was a last minute birthday present for Sarah) and I made it longer than Emily's instructions. Ideally I would have liked it to be a little longer for the over-the-head use (but I was running out of wool):

 

If it gets a little baggy around the neck you can use a lovely clasp to secure it tighter.

I really liked the design and will probably make another one using wool and alpaca plied together.