AMQA Inc. Quilt Show

At the end of September I attended the Australian Machine Quilting Association Quilt Show for 2012.  This show was held in conjunction with the Australian Machine Quilting Festival at the Adelaide Convention Centre.  I was pleased to be able to enter a couple of quilts that I quilted for Sandy and Carol. Here are the photos of their quilts hanging in the show. 

Sandy has made a beautiful quilt as part of her sewing group, they shared fabric so there are a lot of variety in the thongs. 

 

 Sandy's quilt 'Aussie Thongs'

  

  

Here are a few close ups.

The border is made of log cabin blocks and the quilting design is called 'Beaches' by Anne Bright.

The bright colours work so well and the background fabric was  a great choice for a beach.

Sandy should be quite proud of her quilt as it caught the eye of Ricky Timms who had come to Festival to teach.  I was told he thought it a great quilt.









I really like the flower thongs and you can also see the quilting pattern in this photo, a pair of things, a shell, some water lines.

Another quilt I entered was made by Carol.  Carol must have an enormous scrap bucket as she has made at least 4 of the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilts.  Bonnie Hunter is well known for her scrappy style.

This quilt is the pattern 'Carolina Christmas'.

Carol's quilt 'Fantasia'

Carol does wonderful piecing and her quilts are a dream to quilt.  The preparation and care taken by Carol make for a great result.

Some close ups.

 Not sure what these are called, whirlygigs, friendship star variation.

The star within a star block. Carol decided on a pattern called Fantasia by Lorien Quilting for this quilt. The curves balance it nicely. 

Pieced borders are very typical for a quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter and Carol does them so well.  

In this photo you can see the quilting goes off the edge of the quilt but you can also see the line of stay stitching Carol has done. 

Stay stitching on a pieced border is a good idea.  It prevents any of these small seams starting to undo when the quilt is handled which can then become a problem when quilting.








A long post but I wanted to show a number of photos of each of these quilts. 


 If you are interested in knowing more about either AMQA Inc. or AMQ Festival please follow the links on the right of this blog.

Happy Quilting
Raylee

Friendship Challenge

Quilt by Raylee

These 2 quilts have 3 things in common!  Go on, I hear you say.  Well these 2 quilts are what a Kim and I came up with in response to some simple parameters for our friendship challenge. 

At the Inaugural Australian Machine Quilting Festival in 2010, the speaker for the Gala Dinner was Kimmy Brunner from America.

Quilt by Kim

Kimmy described how herself and a friend had challenged each other to make a quilt using specific colours, lime green and pink, I believe.

Well Kim and I discussed and decided on our challenge requirements whilst waiting for our flight home.

Red, Black, one other colour and at least one circle.


As you can see both quilts fill these requirements, but oh so differently!

It was great to see these quilt hang near each other at the Australian Machine Quilting Association Quilt Show, held in conjunction with AMQ Festival 2012.

 I received a text from Kim on her way home from Festival, time to think about our next challenge.  Will let you know.

Happy Quilting
Raylee 

A Busy Year.

Checking back to my blog today I was shocked to see that despite my last post I did not get myself into a habit and show you things regularly, it's actually been longer than before.
In the past year my husband has gone on long service leave from the Defence Force, I have taken on an executive position of an Australia wide association, been needed at school by son #3 a fair bit, done a fair bit of quilting, and more recently spent a week in Adelaide at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival.

I have seen on a few blogs I regularly check that they have a button which says something like IBOT, which stands for I Blog On Tuesdays.
What a great idea.  I don't need the button, I just need the day that it should happen and I plan to stick to it unless there is something that just cannot wait.  I did think about my week and have to admit that Tuesdays is probably the better for spending some time at the computer.
So after a busy year I do have lots to show you and my plan is to do that on Tuesdays. Watch this space.

Block detail from Blue Gentleman

Too long between posts but plenty to show.

I can hardly believe it has really been over 7 months since I last showed you anything.  I have some catching up to do then.  Though I haven't put anything on this blog I certainly have been busy.  Plenty of customer's quilts and some of my own, a Member Challenge for AMQA Inc, Canberra Quilters Exhibition, more customers quilts, a trip to Qld to see my Mum, some new excercise classes for me, and some more quilts.  This is all on top of the busy life I have as Mum to my boys and wife to Thomas.  So I had not forgotten just needed to catch up a little and not say yes to too many things so I could spend some time showing you what I've been up to.  I have some photos to get of my camera and then I can start uploading them here.  Check back soon, I promise it won't be very long.
Happy Sewing
Raylee

'Linda in Pink' AMQA Inc. Member Challenge 2011, 2nd Wholecloth - Handguided

Quilt Auction for QLD Flood relief

I have spent part of today watching in utter amazement at the sheer volume of water running through so many towns in QLD. My parents live in Warwick and are currently cut off from town but are in no danger of losing their home or belongings.

Though we are a long way from them our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost so much and more so with the families who have lost loved ones.

To help the flood victims Jenny of Elephantz is generously auctioning 2 of her beautiful quilts. Please follow the link on the side bar to Jenny's blog to view and bid on these georgeous quilts, Shabby Roses and A Christmas Story. 

I would like to say Thank You to the Emergency Services people and SES workers and volunteers for their devotion to helping victims of these floods.  I pray they will be able to be relieved and rested as required.

I encourage you to have a look at Jenny's quilts and place a bid if you  can.

For those in QLD,

Raylee

A couple of my own quilts

Now that I've spent some time sorting my photos into the correct folders, we all have our own filing system don't we, I can show you some more of what I've been up to recently. 

As I was sorting and labeling the photos I realised there are quite a few I've not shared with you. I hope you enjoy seeing them as they get posted here.

This first quilt is one I made whilst living in New Zealand in 2005.  Dierdre became my friend and we decided to make this quilt at the same time.  It's been a great memory of the time we spent sewing together and I hang it each Christmas in my house.  Happy New Year to Deirdre, Mark Jacob Logan and Hannah!

Christmas Trees

Contrary Wife and Ornery Husband is the title of this quilt which usually hangs in our bedroom. I made this one quite a while ago when I first bought my new machine.  I thoroughly tested the 1/4" foot with all the triangles and such and I am pleased to say 95% of my corners are matching and very neat.

Contrary Wife and Ornery Husband

I love the woven effect created with  just 2 blocks, a Snowball block and Jacob's Ladder I believe. The pattern is in one my quilt books and I've used similar colours to the sample, our room is also decorated using these 3 colours so it fits well.
This was my first time doing free motion quilting on my domestic machine, I was very worried I'd stuff it all up somehow but I'm still reasonably happy with the finished result.


This quilt was made by Kath and myself for our friend Sandy's 3rd child Logan.  We saw it in a magazine and thought, mmm.. we have enough pieces to make this.  Hence it is a little scrappy but we had fun and I'm pretty sure Logan did not mind.  We used a piece of blanketing as the wadding which is lovely and thick, just the thing for floor use in New Zealand.

Logan's Quilt

Sorry its sideways, I did not change the original file and can't do it here.

Tulips and Daffodils

 These lovely stained glass panels were also made while we were living in New Zealand, I had lots of fun making them and used the complete roll of bias tape, I think I had about 1 1/2" left when I was done!

The dog rose panel was done in a class I took and then I got enthused that weekend and finished the other 3. I used some unevenly dyed fabric to give a bit of interest.

Dog Roses and Iris

I have a design for a sunflower in stained glass from the Three Swans Studio which I hope to make this year.  If I say it here someone will ask me at some point and it will get done.
I plan to hang it near my front door so my customers know they are at the correct house. 

I do like the stained glass effect and that these are 4 individual quilts, they could have been joined together quite easily as well.

Well this is most of what's in my 'Personal' photo file, will show you some more from the customer's quilts folder next time.

Happy Sewing

Raylee

At last, some more quilts!

A couple of posts ago I said I would show you some of the quilts I've been busy with for customers, well that was a couple of months ago and we are now into 2011,  Happy new Year Everyone. 
Here are a few pictures of quilts since October.

Gwen's 1930's Hearts

Gwen's Hearts border

The hearts were echo quilted a bit like a celtic knot with simple lines in the setting triangles to complement the piano key quilting in the border.

Gwen's hearts block

Gwen started this quilt a few years ago and has been busy this year getting a few WIP's completed. There will some more photos of Gwen's quilts coming up soon.

A simple wavy line was quilted in the sashing using Invisifil thread

Leslie's niece's quilt

Close-up of blocks

Leslie's niece saw this quilt in a magazine after a quilt gift was offered and said she liked it exactly how it was.  A few internet orders later and Leslie was piecing circles and squares with great speed.

This quilt now resides in the US after the binding was completed and it took up a fair bit of luggage space I'm sure, being a QS quilt.  Leslie was quite busy before her trip as she also completed a KS quilt for her parents and took it home to the US.

Bright Circles

Bright Circles Block

Lilian made this bright quilt as a gift for a small person, I really like the wonky circles, they add movement to the quilt.

The quilting pattern I used is called Bayside and a variegated thread also adds some interest.









I've spent some time sorting photos so will add a few more very soon.  I have had to fight for some time on the computer. Holidays and 4 boys have dominated them for a bit. 

Happy Sewing

Raylee