AQC update

From Australasian Quilt Convention, 25 October 2021:

AQC in 2022 will move to Brisbane for the first time. The change is due to a number of factors, read more here.

See the best quilts from around Australia, together with amazing international works. Learn new techniques in our convention classes with expert tutors. Spend four days immersing yourself in everything the Australasian Quilt Convention has to offer.

Recent quilt finishes

Virginia makes a quilt for each of her grandchildren for their
tenth birthdays. This one is a marine ‘I Spy’.

Jan’s newest granddaughter has two older siblings so she
made them a Teddy bear each to go with the quilt
she made the new baby.

Sharron also has a new grandchild, born during lockdown,
so she wasn’t able to see him for some weeks. But Sharron
was organised, and his quilt was ready for him.

Janet loves the sea, and enjoyed making her ‘Time and Tide’ 

quilt from Shell Rummell’s design, and her fabrics.

 It hangs in Janet’s office.

The fourth in Janet’s series of Little Houses quilts has 

‘laneways’ between the rows, allowing her to more  easily 

quilt a continuous line pattern.

Nerida says her #30daysofimprovqal quilt is quilted just 

enough to hold it together. There is a lot of interest in 

with the piecing, so minimal quilting is a 

good design decision.

 

Summer exhibitions: Jervis Bay

If you are heading to the south coast over the holidays, you might be interested in these two exhibitions at the Jerbis Bay Maritime Museum in beautiful Huskisson.

The two exhibitions, Towards Abstraction and EmpoweRed
will run concurrently at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum.

 

Reading, viewing, listening ...

https://youtu.be/jmbDaCGu8Hw

Kaffe Fassett discussing his quilts at 2021 Festival of Quilts, with Natasha McCarty.

‘Studio Spades’ is a series of posts about textile artists’ work spaces produced once or twice a week by Fibre Arts Australia. You can subscribe to receive an email alert each time a post is made. Alternatively you can simply read the posts at the website. There is currently an archive of fourteen entries:

https://www.fibrearts.net.au/studiospaces

It’s an interesting insight into how and where the artists work, and what they regard as essential to their practice.

Greg Lauren and the Gee’s Bend Quilters crafted wearable Americana

In our era of hyperfast consumption, Greg Lauren has a zeal for patience. His slow-made approach to reconstruction finds new life for otherwise unwanted scraps and textiles, a time-consuming process that undermines the typical more-more-more industry mentality.  

So, Lauren's partnership with the Gee's Bend Quilters feels like the designer both paying his dues and paying forward the renown garnered by his own designs.  Jake Silberi, Highsnobiety, 16 October 2021

 

How Singer Won the Sewing Machine War

The Singer Sewing Machine changed the way America manufactured textiles, but the invention itself was less important than the company’s innovative business … Alex Palmer, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 July 2015

 

Artist Bisa Butler on creating new narratives through portrait quilts

Artist Bisa Butler has been called a modern-day Griot – but instead of using words to tell stories, she uses stitches and cloth. Her quilts have graced the covers of magazines and she created the striking illustration for the soon-to-be-released book "Unbound," the memoir of activist and Me Too movement founder Tarana Burke. Nancy Chen reports.

CBS This Morning, 4 September 2021

Bisa Butler: Portraits
Erica Warren (Editor), et al, Yale University Press, 2020

Bisa Butler (b. 1973) is an American artist who creates arresting and psychologically nuanced portraits composed entirely of vibrantly colored and patterned fabrics that she cuts, layers, and stitches together. Often depicting scenes from African American life and history, Butler invites viewers to invest in the lives of the people she represents while simultaneously expanding art-historical narratives about American quiltmaking. Situating her interdisciplinary work within the broader history of textiles, photography, and contemporary art, contributions by a group of scholars—and entries by the artist herself—illuminate Butler’s approach to color, use of African-print fabrics, and wide-ranging sources of inspiration. Offering an in-depth exploration of one of America's most innovative contemporary artists, this volume will serve as a primary resource that both introduces Butler’s work and establishes a scholarly foundation for future research. 

Community quilts (2 of 2)

Each of these seven quilts was pieced, quilted and finished by Lynette, most of it during COVID lockdowns  - a wonderful contribution to our community quilts collection much appreciated.

The herringbone pattern comes from squares made

 from two rectangles, one light, one dark.

Disappearing four-patch, using a variety of floral prints

Light, medium and dark toned rectangles

Light and medium toned rectangles

Sashed squares

Diagonal checkerboard

 

Sixteen patch blocks in nine patch layout

Community quilts (1 of 2)

Robin B’s quilt features many fun prints that a child will love.

Robin w’s ‘Flutterby’ designed by Jen Kingwell, works very well
in saturated colours on a low volume background.
Quilted by Laura, bound by Lynette in a team effort.

The design uses only squares and half rectangle triangles
to create more complex shapes and movement
through careful use of colour and tone. 

Julie trimmed the many donated flying geese, and sewed
them together. Helen donated the floral border print from
deep in her stash, and Laura quilted the finished top.

Dawn selected fabric from a large donation, and from the
community stash, and drafted her own design.
Quilted by Laura, bound by Helen.

A typically vibrant colour palette by Robyn W,
quilted by Laura, bound by Lynette.

A message from the Sewing Basket

Save your donations for when things have settled down in 2022. If you don’t have donations you can shop and help make room.

Everything you need to know about The Sewing Basket is here

 

‘She Stitched the Stars’ - new book

A new book, recommended for children aged 4 - 9 has been published, just a few weeks ago. It is listed by booksellers Angus and Robertson and Booktopia in Australia, and seems to be widely available.

She Stitched the Stars
A Story of Ellen Harding Baker's Solar System Quilt
By Jennifer Harris, illustrated by Louise Pigott

In 1876 Ellen Harding Baker began stitching an extraordinary quilt, one that accurately depicted our solar system. Ellen, an Iowa storekeeper’s wife and a mother, had a curiosity that reached far beyond the stratosphere. Today, the quilt hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. This lyrical story imagines the creation of the quilt from the perspective of Ellen’s daughters, who, like their mother, lived in a time when girls and women were expected to limit their pursuit of knowledge, and who may have been inspired to dream bigger and look farther.  … Albert Whitman and Company (publisher)

The Smithsonian’s web page on the 1876 Solar System quilt:

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556183

Bags, hats, a jacket

Nerida’s hand-stitched ‘Bessie’ bag

Daphne’s zippered pouches

Sharron’s zippered pouches for a rose-lover friend

Pat’s crocheted jacket

Yvette’s Liberty project bag has a transparent front panel

Sharron’s knitted hats for her grandchildren, including
a newborn, and a zippered pouch for his Mum.

Community quilts photo shoot

 A sparkling October day in Sydney, a beautiful spring garden, and a dozen quilts to be photographed for our records … 

These community quilts were gathered at our first sewing day since May, a few were handed in earlier, but had not yet been photographed. Individual quilt photos will be posted soon. Thank you to all who have made them through lockdown.

Works in progress

 Zoom meetings have been a quiet hive of industry, with lots of English paper piecing, and other hand sewing keeping our hands occupied while we participate.

Helen has been spending time with some English paper piecing projects.
At left she is joining large fussy cut blocks into a quilt top; at top
right are a growing collection of smaller blue fussy cut stars for
another project; bottom right, rows of elongated hexagons will
be a border around an appliqued medallion.

Daphne is piecing scrappy blocks, with a very thin insert 

highlighting how many different scraps she’s using, aiming 

for no repeats in a single block.

Secondary design emerging.

Sue not only hosts our Zooming, but she has finished 

some older projects and pieced all these lovely parts 

for a future quilt. Zoom in for the fussy cutting.

Nerida is ready to start hand quilting her version 

of ‘Dear Jen’, designed by Jen Kingwell, made in 

a beautiful collection of prints.