Showcase 2018

Trip to Melbourne for the Craft and Quilt Fair, although mainly to see the Vic Quilters Showcase. I volunteered for white glove duty again, and wore more comfortable shoes than last time. This time I kept my phone with me while on duty, so was able to photograph some quilts.

There were two versions of Rajah Revisited by Lessa Siegele on show. This is one of the quilts I am working on at the moment, so I was interested to see each maker's techniques and colour selections.

Roslyn Robinson made her version completely by hand:

Her colour choices were in line with the pattern suggestions, which were based on the colours of the original quilt:

Margaret Williams' version was all done by machine:

Margaret used Leesa Chandler's Under the Australian Sun floral fabrics for the central block, one narrow inner border, and her wide outer border. The last three of Margaret's borders are her own additions, not in the published pattern.  I liked her use of value contrast to bring definition to some of the inner borders which can get a bit muddy or lost in some versions of this quilt:

Two beautiful quilts, and each a reminder to me of just how much work I still need to do on mine.

Joy Budd's Pietra Dura also reminded me of planned work:

I instantly recognised her design as being based on the decoration of the Taj Mahal. When I was there I took lots of photos of the decorative stonework, thinking that "one day" I would use the designs in a quilt.

Joy obviously had the same idea, and then actually did it rather than just thinking about it.

The rest of my photos are of quilting that grabbed me.

Desley Maisano's quilting is always wonderful. She won the longarm quilting prize for her own quilt Version 3 - Black. Her colourful quilting on a black background was stunning:

And success for a first-time entrant, Marlene Bell:

Winner for excellence in domestic machine quilting - amateur.

Beautiful quilting on a beautiful quilt. Juste Noir et Blanc by Robyn Coots:

Robyn's original design, hand appliquéd and machine quilted. Winner for excellence in domestic machine quilting - professional.

It was fun meeting up with a few quilting friends at the show.  My train trip both ways was also in the company of a fellow quilter. Without any arrangement being made, we found ourselves together on the station for each leg of the journey. During our conversation she showed me how to get audiobooks from our local library to listen to on my phone. I've never read (if that's the right word) an audiobook, but was curious about how the experience compares with "normal" reading. So I downloaded the app as we were talking on the train, and when I got home I downloaded a book to try.