Art Quilts at the Wool Museum

My Sweet Sixteen was booked in for its regular service (2 years or 2,000,000 stitches) in Geelong today, so while it was being worked on I went to the National Wool Museum to check out Art Quilt Australia 2019:

There are two sides to the exhibition, because of the different prizes:

• $3000 for Expressions: The Wool Quilt Prize, for a wool quilt. The winner of the Expressions prize is also acquired by the National Wool Museum for its permanent collection.
• $3000 for the non-acquisitive OZQN Award of Excellence, which is open to all quilts.

The colourful quilts glow against dark walls:

Here are a few of my favourites.

This photo doesn't do justice to Pat Forster's "Ten Shades of Rhododendron, Seven Blooms Intact":

Lois Parish Evans' "Aussie Bush Delights", an mandala of native flowers:

Alison Withers' "Change for Earth" received a "highly commended" in the wool quilt prize:

I really wanted to touch her woollen floral creations - they looked so tactile.

Denise Griffiths' "Flora Australis" used a 3D padded appliqué technique, which I also would have liked to get my hands on!

It was only looking back through my photos that I realised they all had a floral theme.

The winner of the Ozquilt Network Award for Excellence prize had nothing to do with flowers. This is a detail of Neroli Henderson's "Whitewash", a representation of churning waves:

She used a photo printed on silk as the basis for this piece, then used a heavy thread (12wt) in the quilting to add texture.