Gifting Quilts

Our local quilt club, Rose City Quilters, is having its Celebration of Quilts exhibition at the Convention Centre here in Palmerston North over the weekend of 27-29 August. Members of the club (of which there are well over 100) will show quilts they have made over the last 2 years. The show is well worth a visit if you are in the area.
I will be showing some quilts (and share them here on my blog next week as well), but it got me thinking about the quilts that I have made in that period that have been given away as gifts. The following now live in different places in New Zealand.

This one I actually still own, but won't be showing. Completed in October 2008.I made this quilt to use as a sampler for trying out different free-motion quilting designs.

Quilt made for my nephew's 21st : March 2009

Small quilt made for a "Go Green" challenge for another exhibition April 2009 - this won a merit award and lives with my friend who is a dress designer. The fabrics mainly came from herQuilt made for my mother-in-law's 70th birthday. Class taught by Jacqui Karl at the Cloth Shop in May. Click here for a pic of me and Jacqui :-) Quilt completed in July, and gifted in December 2009 McKenna Ryan visited Palmerston North and gave a class about her applique methods at the Cloth Shop in November 2009. You can see me stitching in this Cloth Shop blog post. The block is mounted on canvas, and was given to my mother for her birthday in December 2009. I also made Xmas wallhangings, from a pattern by Adrienne Walker. Ths one now lives in Auckland. And this one in Feilding with my parents.

This year I have only completed these small quilts so far. They have been donated to the neonatal unit at the Palmerston North hospital, and started life as a quilt top in 1998! I was very pleased to have it repurposed into these.

I will blog later about the other arty things I completed over this same 2 year period that were not quilts. And next week I will share photos of the quilts I am showing at the exhibition.

More Fabric Paper

Thought I would share some more info about fabric paper and some more great links.

If you are keen on Beryl Taylor's techniques (see this post for a link to her original method) and would like to see them demonstrated, you can get more by getting this DVD (click on the cover for more info) A while ago, this was available as an online class and I got a really good deal on it so picked that instead of the DVD. Good notes, good pics, cool techniques. I just need to do a bit more experimentation. The class included the basics of making fabric paper, expanded on that using candy wrappers and paper napkins, and then went on to further fun stencilling on commercial fabric, doing some free motion embroidery, and using soft metal foils as well. I made really good notes to go back to, but I do wonder if the DVD might have been a better option in that you can keep it to refer to over and over (the online course place is no longer in business, so perhaps others came to the same conclusion!)

More fabric paper making instructions and examples of using it here at Belinda Spiwak's blog.
Another person who has taken Beryl's method and made it her own is Kelli Nina Perkins. She has published this very cool book - with heaps of great ideas to create and use fabric paper - she calls hers stitch paper. Click on the cover to get more info. I own this and will be trying more techniques when I have the time.

And go to her blog here for links to things she has made with stitchpaper.

Here is a picture of a small 'quilt' I made using fabric paper. I say quilt although I never stitched it as 3 layers - I guess it is more of a dimensional collage. Background and dress all of fabric paper. This evolved from a project in Beryl Taylor's book.Closeup shot shows the heart and wings made of grungeboard. And if you want still more inspiration, hop over to Adrienne Goodenough's blog, with Beryl Taylor-inspired projects here and here, and other fabric paper ideas here.
Enjoy ;-)

10

My big boy turned 10 today - he is lovely. Happy Birthday Jacob We had a great day of family celebrations - he loved all his cash! Got some nice presies as well.I am almost finished the charity quilt - a bit disappointed with how it has turned out, but will reserve final judgement until I get the binding on.

Spring is on the way :-) My first daffodil was out today.Have a good week everybody