Sarah Fielke visits Fairholme

Thanks for the photo Sarah
 - we were so busy admiring the
quilts, we forgot to take any!

This week we had the great pleasure of a a visit from Sarah Fielke, for a trunk show of some of the quilts from her books, the stories behind them, and a little (!) shopping from her fabric ranges and other products.

It was so good to hear from such a dedicated, professional and passionate quilter. Beautiful quilts and books, and her new fabric range was very popular. We'll be keeping an eye out for her new book, Old Quilts, New Life in September (we got to preview a couple of the quilts), and will add it to our library,where we already have Sarah's previous books.

Sarah is an active participant on social media, as you will see from the links on her website.

Thanks Sarah, and thanks Georgie for organising such an enjoyable morning.

'Out of Africa': Gosford, August

Art Studios Gallery

391 Mann Street, North Gosford NSW 2250

Alan R Tremain is Australia’s longest practising male quilt designer and is recognised internationally for his design, quilt conservation and restoration abilities. Alan’s inspiring and dramatic ‘Out of Africa’ wax cloth quilt exhibition will be opened at 2.30pm on Saturday 8th August by International Quilt Artist Judy Hooworth and introduced by the Quilt Study Group of Australia’s Convenor Karen Fail, both Life Members of the Quilters’ Guild of NSW Inc.

‘Out of Africa’ is a much awaited exhibition of dramatic and original quilts made using and inspired by African Wax Cloth. This is the first solo exhibition by Alan since suffering a stroke August 2013.

While African Wax Cloth embodies a very dramatic and colourful history, its true origin is yet to be defined. Views differ as to how Dutch wax prints entered the West African market. One view is that in the late 1800’s Dutch freighters on their way to Indonesia from Europe with their machine‐made batik textiles stopped at various African ports, and subsequently an African client base grew. African wax cloth fabrics have been widely embraced by couture fashion houses in both Europe and USA. 

Cotton + Steel: new blog + 5 free patterns

Cotton + Steel, a company of five young designers burst onto the fabric scene a year ago, with a popular collection of individually designed but coordinating quilting cotton, manufactured and marketed by RJR Fabrics.

They have since branched out into a variety of fabrics including some for garment making, and home decor.  Their (northern) Spring 2015 collection is just arriving in local quilting shops, and quilters are enjoying them as much as the first collection.

To celebrate their second year, Cotton + Steel have launched a blog, with a free quilt pattern to download from each of the designers - the accompanying quilts are made up in the new fabric collections.

Victorian Quilters Showcase 2015: award winners

The Victorian Quilters Showcase is on now in Melbourne. Bernina has posted some photos of the award winners on its Facebook page, including the Best of Show, 'A Journey to Nirvana' by Sugy Kim.

Recent show and tell ...

Dawn enjoys making disappearing 4-patch blocks - this quilt
is for her own family, but she liked it so much that she found
some similar fabrics in the community stash and has just
about finished one to donate as well. Doesn't that vibrant
coral border look good with the soft, more neutral colours?

Louise W-S is making a pair of quilts for family members
who are dealing with going through very tough times. She
is hand quilting both of them.

Nerida's gorgeous version of Jen Kingwell's pattern,
'Midnight at the Oasis' - the churn dash border is very, very cute.
(A link to the pattern for purchase will be added when the internet
access here is more co-operative.)

Robin S said she wasn't making any more large quilts
- so she made a few hexagons for the first time.
Her husband is counting them, and it's more
than 2000 so far ... good thing they're only 1" !

We had a preview of Robin W's latest delightful
 excursion through her Kaffe Fasset stash, using  jelly roll.

Jill has re-engineered some flannel blocks made a
couple of years ago, and backed it with flannel
as well for a very warm quilt.

Quilt Shows!

Some quilt shows coming up in the Sydney area:

Camden Quilt Show
9.30am - 4pm Saturday 1st – Sunday 2nd August 2015 Camden Show Hall, 193-194 Argyle St, Camden 

Wangi Quilt Show
10am - 4pm Friday 28th - Sunday 30th August 2015 Wangi Workers Club, 11 Market St, Wangi Wangi 

Arcadian Quilters Quilt Show
9am - 4pm Friday 28th - Sunday 30th August 2015 Galston Community Centre, 37 Arcadia Rd, Galston

For winter

These quilts will shortly be delivered to residents at a local nursing home, made as part of our community outreach activities. A similar number are being delivered to the Quilters Guild of NSW community program for children in foster care, but they escaped before a group photo could be taken.

Mad Quilters Gathering Penrith 2015

www.madquiltersgathering.com.au

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2015 - pictures

Last weekend was the second Saturday in July - the day of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (for which it never rains) in the town of Sisters, Oregon.

If you couldn't be there (and most of us weren't!) you see lots of the day's action in the 105 photos generously posted by the Stitchin' Post, in a Facebook album. More than 1300 quilts were hanging, and many of them are pictured here.

Sisters Outdoor Quiltshow Facebok page also has many photos from the Show and associated events. They posted that there were 12,000 visitors from 49 states and 25 countries, and posted a link to the excellent photos taken byGary Miller of Sisters Country Photography.

If you are on Instagram, look for ‪#‎sistersoutdoorquiltshow‬.

Textiles and art, not quilting

None of these links is about quilting, but they will appeal to many quilters who have a broader interest in textiles and art:

Heads up about a new Australian movie, The Dressmaker, due for cinema release on 22nd October 2015. The trailer is now online.

Seamstresses in Fine Art is an occasional series of blog posts by The Inbox Jaunt - each post is an image of an artwork with details of its maker, country and date of origin, and links to further information on the artist.

Textile artist Ken Smith was  commissioned by Bernina Australia to make a free motion embroidered vest,  for the Gala Dinner at the 2015 Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne. The garment is made in three pieces that can be taken apart and hung as separate works of art.

Recent community quilt finishes

We'll be packing up the accumulated community quilts next week for a mid-year delivery to their new owners - these have been finished just in time to add to the collection. Thank you to all the makers.

Barbara has herself a reputation for being the 'car quilt specialist'.
She can take a few pieces of fabric with vehicles of all kinds,
marry it up with a range of small and geometric prints and blenders
in a winning combination. Lynette quilted her latest,
ready to be handed over later this month. 

Dawn made this cheery rainbow top in Brenda Gael Smith's
'Power Stripping' workshop in 2012. Lynette has quilted it
with close straight line quilting - matching the thread to each
strip. That made for a lot of thread burying!
It is finished with rainbow striped binding.

All her own work - Dawn made this disappearing 9 patch
after collecting a number of complementary fat quarters that
were give-aways on a magazine some months ago.
She added some limey green from the community stash, and
some deep aquamarine prints from her own stash.
Dawn then quilted it on her mid-arm machine. 

Georgie joined the strips from a jelly-roll as a
background for a flower applique. After it languished
for some time, Lynette added texture by outline
 quilting each seam, and we voted to leave the applique
for another project, because we like the calm effect of
 the 'low volume' fabrics, with just a hint of colour.

Definitely not low-volume, these two tops emerged
from Robin W's considerable stash of Kaffe Fassett fabrics,
which seems to be self-replenishing. Lynette found just
the right backing fabric, and quilted it in chevrons ... 

... this one does have some lowish-volume background
fabric, but still glows with light. Very simply quilted by Jill.

Friday Showcase, July 2015

Last Friday, Fairholme Quilters delivered the monthly Friday Showcase at the Quilters Guild of NSW, in the city. We were warmly welcomed and enjoyed the experience of sharing just a few of our quilts with other enthusiasts. We took eight large quilts, and the ten small challenge quilts from our 2014 exhibition. A selection of the quilts is now hanging in the Guild office until the next Showcase on 7th August.

Thanks to the Quilters Guild for the invitation and opportunity. We recommend the Showcase as a regular event for anyone who like to look at quilts, and values the opportunity to examine them more closely in an informal setting, and to meet the makers.

The Showcase program is available from the Guild's website, here.

The quilts were held up one at a time and then
laid out on the large table for closer examination
- this is all of our quilts, at the end of the Showcase.

Val's 'African Dance' (with Janice's 'Wedding Quilt'
and 'The Kensington Quilt' from Margaret's collection underneath)

Miriam's hand-made Trip Around the World

It was good to have some of the makers with us,
to speak about their own quilts.

The Stained Glass Window Quilt 

The 2014 Colour Challenge Quilts

Thanks to Jan Foster for the photos.

'... this parallel universe of quilting ...'

Enjoy the transcript of this speech, delivered at a Canadian conference. It is quite long (and well worth the time), but do not settle back with a cup of tea or coffee (or any drink for that matter) - your keyboard will be at risk. Thank you to Kavy, The Sewing Lawyer, for bringing it to us:

A speech on quilting, by Allan Fradsham, a criminal court judge in Calgary, Alberta, 2010
... I was completely oblivious to the fact that what she was really announcing was that she was taking up membership in a tightly knit (if you'll pardon the expression) group of individuals whose loyalty to one another makes motorcycle gang members seem uncommitted, and whose passion for quilting activities makes members of cults look positively disinterested. As is the case with many spouses, I was completely unaware that there existed this parallel universe called quilting ...

A tip from Miriam ...

We love Sew Miriam's blog posts - she is, after all, 'our' Miriam.

The latest one is a simple, but very effective tip on binding - and no, we haven't all heard it before. We'll be trying it just as soon as the next quilt is ready for binding.