Several members including myself went to the Melton Quilt-In last Saturday (9th July) and it was a wonderful day, with friendly sewers. There were several patch workers from Rochester, who were badly effected by the floods, who enjoyed a relaxing day getting away from it all.
The guest speaker was a well known textile artist Helen Godden, who has been awarded several placings in the Housten Quilt shows over recent years and she is one very talented lady. Her specialty is free motion machine quilting. She takes 30 hours to bleach and paint fabric and another 50 hours to quilt and sew her designs. She was extremely free with her show and tell and we were able to be hands-on while we inspected her amazing, award winning quilts.
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| One of Helen's gorgeous quilts - source |
One quilt she made was themed "quilt things that come in pairs" and in doing so related her connection with her mother (who is also a patchworker) who she sometimes works in conjunction with. She had magnificently quilted in the background with items that come in pairs, ie. salt & pepper, shoe & sock, bat & ball.
To give you an idea of the scale of the competitions she takes part in, one of her quilts sold for $10,000. When you win a prize at the Housten Show, you also win a flight over to the show. One year Helen won two prizes and upon asking for the two flights, Housten decided from now on you are only able to win one flight no matter how many prizes you win.
What sets Helen apart from other high profile quilters is that she is quite naive in regard to her ability. She was a textile artist before stumbling onto quilting, and she is simply, a natural. I am pleased to say I was lucky enough to win a prize in one of the raffle draws. I chose a free motion quilting book which I am happy to donate to our library.
On to other news, I'd like to let you all know that the new ladies who did the back to basics table runner did an amazing job and it was great to be part of helping them to work on their creativity. Basic cutting, using both mat and rotary cutter and piecing blocks were some of the techniques we covered. Di got a lot out of helping them use a light box, to applique and embroider the designs on their table runners as well as teaching them to cut and sew on the binding.
Any new member please feel free to see Esmae if you would like to purchase one of our club badges. I would like to thank all our committee members who continue to do an amazing job for our club, it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to make such a successful club run so smoothly.
I hope all our members who are enjoying their travels away from this cold winter are happy, safe and especially enjoying themselves.
Christmas in July will be here soon and 'unfortunately' I won't be able to attend as 'fortunately' we are heading north all the way up to the northern tip of Australia... to Cape York... may I say to the warmer weather... thongs will be the go. The scenery is just fabulous up there and there are four cars in our convoy which will be joined by a fifth when we hit outback Queensland. So, our Vice President, Andrea Sheddick will take over chairing the meetings while I am away. By the time I return at the beginning of September there will be a new President in the chair. I wish them all the best and would like to say I have enjoyed my Presidency and am pleased, especially with all the charity work we have done over the past two years. I would also like to thank the committee for all their support and hard work... we have worked well as a team for the good of the group.
Take care everyone and keep stitching, as I must go and thread another needle or should I start packing ...well er my thongs!!!
Lyn
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