Quilt inspirations

Went to Pukeora on a bus trip with our quilt club on Sunday to see the Wine Country Quilts exhibiton. 

It was a wonderful day. I am now filled with inspiration after seeing these quilts as well as those from last week in Feilding. This is a post with lots of photos to remind me of the wonderful day and hopefully to inspire the quilter in you as well. Click on any photo to see the quilts up closer.
I love butterflies so this was the first quilt to catch my eye. Leanne Kenah did a wonderful job of this with sashiko stitching detail and the marbled fabrics for the butterflies are divine. She won First Prize for the Traditional and/or Appliqued quilt under 1.2m

"Butterfly Rhapsody" by Leanne Kenah.

Many of the quilts I'm sharing today are appliqued because that is my quilting passion. I mainly machine my work, but I can appreciate the artistry of this hand-stitched beauty. I saw the back of this quilt first: 

and had to get closer :

This is the front : 

"Union Square" by Vivienne Franklin

It's not surprising that this quilt won First Prize for Best Hand Quilting. Here's a couple more close-ups of the front :

I love how she has changed her quilting designs across the same block pattern

Now for some lovely applique quilts ::

"Rose of Sharon" made by Maree Beswick

This gorgeous quilt is from a block of the month by Sharon Pederson. The colours sing. Here's a close-up :

This next one got my vote for Viewer's Choice ::

"Flower Festival" by Shelagh Barber

I was really taken with the beautiful colours and the extra embroidery stitched embellishments finished it off so well.

I always love coming across new quilt designers to explore, and was very taken with this quilt which is designed by Wendy Williams :

"Growing Up" by Heather Preston

There were also shops at the show, and while walking around I saw that she has also brought out a book :

Go HERE for a sneak peek inside via Amazon

This is going on my birthday list! You can go HERE to see other patterns which she has for sale. I also quite liked this quilt

"Sisters" by Vivienne Franklin

Only just realised as I've loaded this name that she was the winner of the hand-quilted prize winner further above. If you check out this blogpost you will see that I think the birds were also inspired by Wendy Williams. Sometimes the universe seems to be hitting me over the head with a particular inspiration!
And I just have a few more things to show you....as well as the judged quilt exhibition, there was a guest exhibitor : Barbara Harder of Havelock North. Here are a few of her quilts - lovely to see such variety in her work.

Close-up of the amazing peonies

Another close-up because the dimensional petals are so lovely

And because I don't want you to forget that this is a New Zealand quilt show, here are my favourites from the travelling exhibition "Colours of New Zealand"

"There's a weta in my shorts" by Christine Singleton

"Kiwiana Christmas" by Rochelle Rielly

"Kaka Beak beauty" by Juliet Fitness

So with all of that shared and in my head, I am all set to get stuck into making more quilts!