AQC 2014

The Australasian Quilt Convention or AQC is over for another year and it was just as wonderful as ever.

It is always a pleasure to go to the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building and see such wonderful quilts and shop for all those quilting goodies and catch up with friends, I couldn't ask for a better time really. People come from all over Australia and it's so good to catch up with everyone.

I took quite a few quilt photos and I can't show them all but I will show some of my favourites.

Every year at the AQC dinner a Rajah Award is given to an Australian quilter who has done much to promote Australian quilting to the world. This year the award went to  Michele Hill and she is a very popular recipient. Michele makes quilts that are inspired by William Morris and she also had her quilt on display as Best of Show for South Australia.

Michele Hill's Quilt

In 2007 Lessa Siegele won the award and she decided to make a copy of the famous Rajah Quilt that was made by convicts when they sailed out to Australia all those years ago. She got permission from the National Art Gallery but only made it a quarter of the size because the original quilt is very large.

Rajah Quilt by Lessa Siegele
 

The pattern is for sale and because Lessa doesn't have a website or blog you can get the pattern though Michele Hill.

AQC has been going for ten years and to celebrate they had a challenge to make a quilt inspired with the theme 10. There were so many lovely ideas but they had to pick some winners. Alison Withers won the first prize with her fun idea about team work. Anyone who has been involved with the running of a quilt show will know how important team work is.


Ten Together Equals Teamwork by Alison Withers

There were two second prizes and one of them was a quilt by Jill Hessing.



Ten in my Tank Today by Jill Hessing

 I also loved Sue de Vanny's tram quilt.


Tram Route Number 10 by Sue de Vanny

Yvonne Chapman did a really god job of depicting a wave with her quilt called Hang Ten.

Hang Ten by Yvonne Chapman

There was a wonderful exhibit curated by Brenda Gael Smith with the theme Living Colour. They were all wonderful but I'll show you a couple of photos that I took. I didn't take a lot of photos of them because I bought the book catalogue that had photos and all the details in it.

Ordinary Folk by Sue Duffy

Yum Yum by Kay Haerland
 

There were other quilts from around Australia there and I loved the beautiful quilting by Ming Hsu of South Australia.

It's the Singer not the Song by Ming Hsu

Red and Green and Yellow Too by Glenys Cheng

There was a wonderful display of quilts by Jenny Bowker who won the Rajah Award last year and her quilts really glowed. I think it's the heightened colour palette that she uses.



Abu Ali and the Gilded Chairs by Jenny Bowker

The Award for Best of Australia went to Janet Treen for her hand quilted applique quilt called Rings and Roses. The photo is a bit cropped because I met someone I did a course with ten years and got talking to her and then there were always people in front of the quilt and it was hard to get a good photo.

Rings and Roses by Janet Treen

On the Sunday I was the classroom helper for Yvonne Brown and she was busy teaching everyone how to make a quilt representing the beautiful tiled floors in the UK. They were using felt, organza, silk, thermofax screens and soldering irons, so it was a day of playing and fun and Yvonne was such a lovely lady, we got on very well.



Bristol Triptych by Yvonne Brown

Now that AQC is over I had better try to start some more quilts after all that inspiration.

Bye for now,
Linda