Challenge Article

The Gisborne Gazette kindly printed the article about the unveiling of our challenge quilts.
The photo was compliments of Sue. I liked how they kept the tip of Annette's hat in the picture.
On to the next challenge!

Challenges for 2016

Donna proposed a couple of challenges to her her groups. Just in case anyone else wants to join - here are the outlines -

1.     The Country Challenge

Pick a country from a bag (or Donna will give you a country), then make a quilt to represent that country. Anything goes, but no bigger than 1 x 1m in size.

     2.     The Sunset Quilt Challenge

Make a landscape quilt that incorporates a sunset. Again, anything goes. Size may range from Postcard size to whatever size you want.

Keep you quilting (e.g. countries) secret, however, you may ask advice from quilters not participating in the challenges. Unveiling end of July 2016.  Have fun!

Foundation Piecing fun

Last night we learned something new! Tania had kindly offered to teach us foundation piecing, so we got together at Marg's place, armed with our sewing machines and little strips of fabric, and a whole lot of enthusiasm.

Of course, we can't work on an empty stomach, so the first order of the night was dinner. The girls got fish and chips, whereas I had falafel, tabouli and hommus.

 Tania, explained some of the basics of foundation piecing to us rookies, and Marina had brought along some of her gorgeous little foundation pieced quilts. They were just mindboggling and beautiful! And beautifully quilted, too.

 Things got underway, and we all got right into the swing of things, with Tania keeping a benevolent eye on us and showing a saint's patience, explaining everything in triplicate and being an excellent teacher.

We hoped to get at least one little Log Cabin block done each, and were successful. Didn't realise how much thinking, sewing, excercise (getting up and down to press) was involved! It's good to be prepared for this kind of piecing, and Tania gave us lots of tips on how to make it all flow smoothly.
In the end, we got our lovely blocks together (and Susan's special block for her Elm Creek quilt), and voila! We are now foundation piecers.
Thank you, Tania, for teaching us, and Marg for having us over.

Challenges - the Great Unveiling (photo heavy!)

 Halloween, and it was so much fun getting together at Marg's for the unveiling of the challenge quilts! The Gisborne Quilters attended as well as Marina, Robyn and Jo, who are city quilters who get together with some of us on occasion. There were two challenges - one a shirt challenge, whereby one had to make a quilt from a number of shirts plus one fabric, the other a quilt based on a Kaffe Fassett pattern in his book "Simple shapes, spectacular quilts".

Everybody got enthused and contributed to one or both of the challenges. Annette came vising from Ballarat, and came dressed for the occasion, in an awesome black and green outfit and the most amazing fishnet stockings! Very spooky indeed!

 We never stint ourselves in regard to catering, and the ladies outdid themselves with cheese and nibbles, delicious soup, quiche, slices, chicken, sausage rolls, salad and so on. The cheese was appropriately adorned with spiders, which didn't put us off.

 After lunch, Annette kicked off the show and tell with her quilt that she had begun while still living in Gisborne. It turned out beautifully, with lots of piecing and stitching/embroidery.

Then Susan showed us her spectacular sampler quilt. We had seen bits of it along the way, but this was our first glimpse of it as a whole. How beautiful, those colours really pop!And the quilting (done by a lady in NZ) was just perfect too, with a variegated thread.

Then the Kaffe Fassett challenge was shown. Both of these were based on the same pattern, but used different measurements and colour ways. Isn't it amazing how the same pattern can look so different?! The one on the right is Gisborne Marina's floral one, very pretty. The other is Annette's creation, very bright and so cozy with a minkee backing. Awesome job, ladies.

Tania had completed this mini quilt top with KF fabric, but for some reason was not too happy with it (although we all were!).

So she started another one, this one made with William Morris fabric, again based on a KF pattern.  It is beautiful, and Tania was inspired to continue working on it. Can't wait to see what comes next. Tania foundation pieced this.

 Gisborne Marina made this shirt challenge based on a KF pattern, thereby effectively combining the two challenges. This was a very pretty quilt, not something I would have expected from mens' shirt fabrics.

And here is yours truly with my KF creation made from batiks (of course) and linens. This was made by hand using EPP and I'm just about to start hand quilting.

 Here are all the KF creations. Such a colourful collection!


Next is Sue's beautiful diamonds quilt, another KF creation, made from spectacular fabrics she bought in Samoa on a holiday. Glorious colours, I love this one!

Marg is still working on her challenge quilt, she has made a whole bunch of these pretty squares, and has a few more to do. We look forward to seeing it all come together.

 Marg's doggies had a fun day watching and judging the quilts.

This was Gisborne Marina's shirt challenge quilt. It looks fantastic, and quite tricky with the stripes going in all directions. The burgundy fabric really puled t all together.

 Tania also participated in the shirt challenge with this sweet Dresden Plate design. Tania's really into foundation piecing, and what a great job she does with it, all those perfect points.

This is Annette's shirt challenge quilt. It's a very masculine quilt and used by her son. Very striking.

And another piece de resistance - Marg's shirt challenge. All those little squares, so intricate! It looks amazing!

Helen's shirt challenge is gorgeous, love the two distinct patterns here. It would have been very tricky again to get the directions of the stripes correct.

 Robyn brought her challenge along, I believe she'll keep going with this and as far as I understand it will be a wedding quilt for some lucky couple.

Marina made this shirt challenge quilt using some fabric from her Dad's and grandfather's shirts. It's a beautiful Australian Flag and incorporates loving memories.

Above is Sue's shirt challenge, with lots of pockets incorporated. Sue plans to give this to the orang utans at Melbourne zoo, the keepers fill the pockets with treats for the orang utans to find. What a lovely idea!

Here's the heap of shirt challenge quilts all laid out. What a fantastic job from all the ladies!

 And here we are, minus Tracee who was busy taking pictures. There's a picture of all of us on Kiwikids' blog if you want to check it out.

After all that hard work, we surely deserved this yummy dessert.

Onto the next challenge....