AQC 2015

The Australian Quilt Convention is over for another year and as usual it was an exciting event with classes, shops and quilts on display.

On Sunday I was a quilt angel for Lisa Walton, that means that I help her with setting up her room or getting supplies or tea or coffee or cleaning up afterwards. She was teaching a painting class so there was plenty of cleaning up to be done.

We had a two hour lunch break so I spent much of that time catching up with friends and looking at the fabulous quilt display.

The Best of Australia prize went to Linda White for her quilt Elenor Jean.

Linda White with her quilt Elenor Jean

This quilt was made with 22,500 quarter inch hexagons! Quite incredible really and the design stands out because of her very clever colour choices.

Detail of Linda White's quilt

Every Year AQC runs a challenge and this year's theme was True Blue, there was such a vast array of wonderful quilts exploring this theme. Here are some of my favourites.

True Blue Mates by Yvonne Chapman

True Blue Mates detail

Splendid Love by Bernadine Hine

True Blue Raider of my Stash by Naomi Hynes

Beginning True by Sue de Vanny

There was a modern Quilt display and a quilt depicting Audrey Hepburn caught my eye. Up close you couldn't quite make it out.

Audrey detail

But when you moved back you could clearly see the portrait of Audrey Hepburn.

Audrey by Andi Herman, quilted by Kylie Cannon

There was great interest in the Gallipoli quilt which was a 12 metre long work divided into panels by a young quilter, Lucy Carroll. Lucy did a floor talk every day about her wonderful work and it was quite emotional. Here is a photo of her getting ready for her talk.

Lucy Carroll

I can't remember how many panels were in the display but here are some photos of two of them.

The Gallipoli Quilt by Lucy Carroll

The Gallipoli Quilt by Lucy Carroll

There was another quilt on display that I enjoyed called Priscilla, I thought it was a fun quilt but very well done.

Priscilla by Bronwyn Hill

I took a lot more photos than this but of course I can't show all of them.

I always enjoy AQC and as usual it did not disappoint. I feel so lucky that it is held in Melbourne and so I can go every year but quilters come from all over Australia to be there.

Bye for now,
Linda

Hundertwasser

In February this year the Waverley Art Quilters had decided to study Hundertwasser.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Dec 15th 1928- Feb 19th 2000.

Hundertwasser was born in Vienna, Austria and died aboard a cruise ship on the Pacific Ocean of a heart attack.

He is known for his vibrantly coloured, radiant paintings; he preferred to place complementary colours alongside each other and also used a lot of gold and silver foil.
His main themes were vegetative growth and architectural symbols like houses, windows, fences and gates. He often combined both themes in the one painting.
From the readings I have done about him he seemed to be quite a quirky character. He is also known for his innovative architectural designs and hated sterile, monotonous houses and buildings.

I bought a wonderful little hardcover book that features all of Hundertwasser’s paintings from 1951-1976. The photos are very glossy against black pages and clearly show the use of the metallic foil.

As always when we study an artist and make a quilt inspired by what we have learnt, we are careful not to copy one of the artist’s paintings but take elements of the paintings to learn more about art and design.

I was inspired by the lovely round motifs that featured in many of his paintings.

Hundertwasser- 754 Blobs Grow in Beloved Gardens

The above image was just one of the many that feature this style of trees. The funny thing is that when I first looked at his paintings I thought that they were flowers and that was why I was inspired by them. I have wanted to do some embroidery on felt for quite a while and thought that here was my chance.

I found some lovely bright cotton fabric as a background and fused on the felt stems and flowers.

While I was doing the embroidery my husband asked me why I was making lollipops! That’s when I looked at his paintings again and realised that his round shapes were actually trees. 

It looked quite bare in the bottom half of the quilt so I added in some leaves.

I was happy with the end result and called my quilt, Hundertwasser’s Flowers.

Here is a close up image of the embroidery.

Embroidery detail

Hundertwasser's Flowers ©Linda Steele 2015

We are trying something different in Art Quilters for the next couple of years so this will be the last little quilt I'll make for this group for a while. I'll write more about our plans in another post.

Bye for now,

Linda