Second prize

I won second prize in the "contemporary patchwork" section at the show! I'm quite chuffed ... although I'm not sure there were any more than four entrants. But anyway, there you go! Here's a photo of me smiling happily (or possibly grimacing) and you can see glimpses of my quilt behind.




The show was fun, as ever - lots of judging of sheep and cattle and goats and alpacas, and dog races and sheepdog trials and camel rides and steam tractors ... and then the competitions for vegetables and fruit and chocolate cake and honey ... and then the craft hall ... even before you reach the rides and the sideshows and the show bags. I'm exhausted just writing it all, let alone doing it. At least it wasn't a million degrees today, but the time the boys and I had dragged ourselves around I was utterly knackered. And broke.


I usually enjoy the craft displays the most but this time it was really disappointing. Not the craft itself, which was varied and fascinating, but the display space. Although they used the same hall as last year, there seemed to be half as many display panels as usual and absolutely everything was crammed on top of each other. You can get an idea from the photo of the quilts above; although that was a good one compared to the poor schoolkids' quilts which barely got a square foot each before another quilt was pinned on top.


Unfortunately the overall effect was a jumble sale - there is something about lots of textiles piled together that shrieks rummage rather than the works of art most of them are. So, despite being well pleased with my certificate (and rosette! same as yours, husband!) as a visitor it was really quite horrible and depressing.

Who knew gangrene was a colour?

Well, the overdyeing didn't go so well. Far from the chestnutty browns I'd hoped for - I ended up with something that looks, frankly, diseased. I wanted to intensify the washed out purples with a big dollop of dense yellow to create something interesting in the neutrals line, but it didn't really turn out as anticipated!!! Never mind, the wonderful thing about dyeing is that there's no such thing as an un-usable colour. I've certainly used all of my disasters and uglies in the past.

Here's from another angle. Still doesn't look any better.

At least this one turned out to be quite pretty. I only overdyed it because I hadn't put enough dye in - I was aiming for a pale pastel pink - and there were ugly white patches over it. So it's gone quite a nice pinky/peachy/apricot colour.

But it hasn't deterred me - I did six 90cm x 100 cm pieces last night in yellows and greens and so far so good...

Little pink pig

Pretty much all I've been doing this week is the liberated amish quilt along. I've been having so much fun with it - just whacking stuff together and seeing what looks good; without worrying about what I'm going to use it for (hah!) and whether I have time to do it at all!


I'm quite pleased with the end result, although I'm not spectacularly comfortable using letters on quilts. I don't know why - I love how they look, and I love making them - but there is something about words that make it "unquilty" to me. Isn't that silly? I will do more letters and words. Perhaps it's just the unfamiliarity that is problematic.




So here's my little pink pig quilt. I love the colour combination, which is surprising, because I would not have expected pink and turquoise to agree.

The rest of my time has been spent with dyeing ... the ones in their bags washed out terribly. A couple were so bad I'm going to have to overdye them. For some reason I cannot make a nice rich brown - all the yellow washes away and I'm left with a very muddy purple. So I'm overdyeing those with more yellow in the hope it will stick. OK - off to Spotlight for more white cloth!!! I LOVE my Wednesdays off.

The Show Quilt

Tomorrow I'm going to drop this colourful number off at the craft exhibit section of the Canberra Show. The show has a fancy formal title involving the words "royal" and possibly "agricultural" but I can't remember it at the moment. I've never exhibited there before, so it's a bit of an experiment.

I personally like this quilt a lot - it's colourful and happy and uses some of my favourite shades - but I don't think it is prizewinning, not by a long shot. The real test is seeing if anyone at work notices!!! My husband usually enters one of his scale models and says that it is quite surprising how many people visit the craft exhibitions, and read the labels, and then come up to you in the weeks afterwards. He won second prize once, so I have some show-rosette catching up to do.

This is a picture of the quilt without the flash to show the quilting. And all the other fatal lumps and bumps!!

Happy dyeing day

Here is the most recent batch, all tucked up in their little baggies. Don't they look fresh and bright? I know it will all get washed away and made more matte but I love that glossy look while they're still damp. And in plastic.

I did some blues / yellows / greens a couple of days ago. Yes, they will be ironed. I can feel a major dyeing frenzy coming on ... oh dear.

I braved my first daytime meeting today - didn't know a soul but there were some very lovely people who were happy to chat and show me the ropes. What a delightful way to spend a morning; a room full of stitchers, sewing, reading, and chatting. I'll go again, although I might take something smaller than a queen-size to hand-quilt. Not so practical.

Most of my sewing has been the liberated amish quilt-along - my green and pink number is a finished top now. I'll just have to think about the quilting, but it probably won't be anything too elaborate because the words are quite densely pieced. Freehand fans would be great, but I've done them before. I might see if I can do something elaborate in the blank spaces .... mmmm.

Scrappy, scrappy and more scrappy

I love making scrappy quilts - lots of prints and lots of leftover fabrics. Partly for fun, but mostly because I am FRUGAL and cannot stand the thought of perfectly good quilting fabric going in the bin.

So this is a scrappy block - lovers knot? wouldn't swear to it - I made last year. The strips and squares are two inches cut so finish at one and half inches which is fairly small. The quilt itself is ginormous for reasons unknown! Because I'm an inaccurate quilter I had to do some serious trimming to make them all fit together. It looked a bit ordinary until I found the red and white dot which perked it all up beautifully. I also like the poison green paisley for the sashing cornerstones. I gave it to my parents-in-law who say they like it very much! As most people do :)

I get much of my scrappy inspiration from Bonnie - who makes such beautiful quilts, especially because her quilts show that the most unlikely combinations of fabric can work brilliantly in traditional blocks.

Lazy Gal's Liberated Amish Get Together

I've signed up for this quilt together which I'm very excited about - not having done anything like this before! It's a bit of an adventure actually, saying I'm going to do something and then doing it and showing other people what I've done. If it's a disaster I'll have to admit to it publicly instead of tying the whole thing in a grocery bag and quietly dropping it in the wheelie bin!

Top marks to Tonya for organising it though - it's such a fabulous thing to do, and brings a whole additional level of enjoyment to quilting (with caveat grocery bag scenario above). I better get on with it then!