The Inaugural AMQA Quilt Show

This was a wonderful show with so many inspirational quilts on display. It was held at the Auditorium at Eventide, Brighton, Queensland, near the edge of the water on the north side of Brisbane. A great venue in a convenient and very beautiful location.
The show ran over the weekend of the 26 - 27 September 2009 and was the very first show run by the Australian Machine Quilting Association in Queensland to focus on machine quilting.

It was a shame that Brisbane was hit by dust storms on the days of the show so fewer people that anticipated ventured out to see it, but even so, it was very well received.


I was very fortunate to win prizes in several categories for quilts I had both made and quilted, and for those some of my wonderful customers had made and I had quilted. They very kindly allowed me to show their quilts. I thought you might like to see these prize wining quilts.

Prize winners

In the Art/Pictorial category quilts I both made and quilted won 1st and 3rd prizes! I was over the moon!

Uluru - 1st Prize	Solutions - 3rd Prize

In the Edge to Edge category Earthy Squares won third prize and Hop, Skip and Jump was Highly Commended. Both quilts were made my Kate Elliott (Scarborough, Qld) and quilted by me.

Earthy Squares	Earthy Squares detail	Hop, Skip and Jump

In the Functional Custom category I entered Burning Desire which was Highly Commended. This quilt is owned by Ann McKenzie but was made for her by her daughter Debbie Morton.

Burning Desire	Burning Desire detail

In the Custom-Heirloom/Traditional section I was fortunate enough to win third prize for quilting Lyndell McDonald's quilt ( Kyogle, NSW) Follow the Path and a Highly Commended for Rosa Mangano's quilt (Gordon Park, Qld) Heirloom Lace.

Follow the Path	Follow the Path detail
Heirloom Lace	Heirloom Lace detail

It was really exciting for me to able share these prizes with my customers and present their ribbons to them.


One of my own personal favourite quilts is Oh My Stars! It was too old to be entered here but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

Information about AMQAS 2010 is now available.

A win at the NSW Quilters' Guild Quilt Show!

The NSW Quilters' Guild Quilt Show is on in Sydney at the moment and one of my clients - Lorna Haigh - won first prize in the Commercially Machine Quilted category! Her quilt is called Australian Wildflowers and is a stained glass style wall hanging that has been machine stitched, hand embroidered and then machine quilted by me. Here is a photo of it.



Congratulations Lorna! A prize well-deserved.

I have had the privilege to quilt some of Lorna's work before. Her quilts vary in style and technique, always something different. I think she likes the fun in challenging me! Check out these:






Visit the Quilters' Guild of NSW website here to see all the winning quilts.

The Sharon Schamber Workshops

Sharon Schamber is an absolute quilting legend. her work is exquisite and she freely shares her knowledge and expertise both through free videos on Youtube and through paid workshops. While her videos are great for those who can't get to a workshop there is really nothing like meeting her and having her guidance first hand.

This photo was taken at Sharon's lecture and that gorgeous quilt is her Spirit of Mother Earth. It's even more stunning up close and personal!

Sharon Schamber in Australia - May 2009

In May 2009 quilters all over Australia were treated to some of Sharon's workshops. Pam Hill of Manly hosted the tour and organised workshops at Tweed Heads, Brisbane, Maleney and South Australia. The Piec-lique class proved very popular but it was the 3-Day Longarm Quilting workshop that was of particular interest to me.

This turned out to be three days of absolute quilting bliss! Pam’s home is located at Manly overlooking Moreton Bay and you can see from the above photos it was just the most fantastic venue, perfect weather (not that rain would have dampened our enthusiasm) scrumptious food and lots of fun in learning.

Quilters travelled from Victoria, Western Australia, all over Qld and Northern NSW and they were not disappointed they made the journey.

The workshops

My good friend Wendy Watkins of Honey Pot Quilting came up from Bendigo (What an excellent excuse for a 3 ½ day leave pass from 2DD’s and DH). Wendy stayed with us at the Aspley Hacienda and as is always the case when we get together, the weekend was a hoot.
We attended Sharon’s lecture at Qld Quilters headquarters on the Thursday night and were just gobsmacked by the display of stunning quilts. Seeing Sharon’s ‘Spirit of Mother Earth’ up close and personal was awe inspiring. Such perfection in the detail. No wonder Sharon has an extensive list of awards and acknowledgements. Wendy and I both hoped some of the creativity would jump over onto us as we almost drooled over the beautiful quilts.

Day One – Wendy hit the shops for some retail therapy (Wuz up with that!) while I headed off to Manly for a day of Trapunto and Beginning Stipples. It didn’t take too long to discover that I was in the company of a very confident teacher. Sharon has a thorough knowledge of her machine which by the way is a Prodigy (that was one tick for me!). Sharon welcomed questions from her audience and was happy for the ensuing discussion to take place. I found her to be a very confident and helpful teacher.

More happy faces.....
L-R Judy Nolan, Robyn Dall, Debbie Cadman, Sharon Schamber and Elizabeth Magagnotti. came over from WA. (Those girls really know how to have fun at work!)

The two days that followed were filled with even more inspiring quilting... we learnt how to ‘Dance with Feathers’ and how to quilt all those creative stipples from ‘Spirit of Mother Earth’. Sharon truly is a very creative artist!

Show and Tell was amazing! This quilt is a stunner and just look at all those stipples and such majestic feathers!

All things considered... it was a fantastic weekend. Thank you Sharon and thank you Pam.

A Day with Barb

Sandy Cunningham of Murwillumbah, NSW, visited my studio recently for an all-day 'watch and learn' session of longarming. What a great day!

Sandy has a different computerised operating system so I only utilised my Intelliquilter to lock a straight line of basting when necessary.

The lesson predominantly involved manual techniques and the variety of pieced borders on this little quilt made it an excellent teaching sample. I was able to demonstrate quite a few techniques and discuss certain choices in building-up the overall plan, including,

• floating the top,


• stabilising the quilt into workable sections,


• why I needed to use different techniques, and


• how to use those techniques to apply different types of quiting whilst limiting the (all too time consuming) number of stops and starts and thread changes.
  

It all worked and 'Flutterby' came together very well. Sandy said she learnt heaps!