500 Traditional Quilts

There is a new book on the market called 500 Traditional Quilts. I was thrilled to find out that 4 of my quilts are included in the book.

It is a compact 8"square book and quite thick. Of course I am biased, but I think the book is beautifully put together. The publishers have taken a lot of care to make sure that quilts that are on facing pages work well together.

Every type of traditional quilt is included and although most of the quilts seem to be American there are quilts from the UK, France, Japan, Canada, Brazil and Australia.

Here are the four quilts of mine that have been included.

Crazy about Ballet  Linda Steele

Holiday Waltz Linda Steele

Naturally Crazy Linda Steele

Scottish Dance Linda Steele

There is going to be an exhibition of many of the quilts in the book at the Houston Quilt Show this year and then the quilts will travel around America for 12 months.
The 3 quilts that will be in the travelling exhibition are Scottish Dance, Naturally Crazy and Crazy about Ballet.
 Holiday Waltz is in France for the Australia Quilts Exhibition.

I actually have 5 travelling quilts at the moment because my Christmas Crazy is travelling around America with the World Quilt Show. What well travelled quilts I have!

Bye for now,
Linda

Australian Quilts in France

I was honoured to be included in a special display of Australian quilts that will be shown in France next month.
The exhibition is called Australia Quilts- Exceptional Quilts from the Great Southern Land.

 

The exhibition will be on show at the Carrefour European du Patchwork/ European Patchwork Meeting 2014, which will be held on 18th-21st September 2014.

The exhibition was curated by Brenda Gael Smith, I am always amazed at Brenda's extraordinary talents and I know that she has worked very hard for this exhibition.

My quilt Holiday Waltz was chosen to be in the exhibition and I feel very honoured to be in such illustrious company. If you click on this link  Australia Quilts you will see quilts by the best of Australian Quilters and I am quite humbled to be included. As you mouse over the thumbnails a bigger photo comes into view.

Holiday Waltz © Linda Steele

I would love to go over there and see the quilt show; I've never been to France.

Bye for now,
Linda

Waverley Patchworkers Raffle Quilt

The Waverley Patchworkers Quilt Show is on this year. We have the quilt show every two years and it is a very well regarded show because we have many very talented quilters in our group.

We had our meeting on Monday night and this year's raffle quilt was unveiled to all. We have named the quilt Waverley Stars.



Waverley Stars 2014

The Quilt was made by members of Waverley Patchworkers and it is beautifully quilted by Desley Maisano of Addicted to Quilts. Desley is a professional long arm machine quilter and we are very lucky that she has agreed to machine quilt our last three raffle quilts. I trust her work so much that I don't even suggest any particular quilting pattern; I just leave it up to her.

Here is a close up photo of the quilting.



Waverley Stars 2014 detail

Our quilt show is being held on Saturday 31st May and Sunday 1st June and we will have the raffle quilt on display. Tickets for the raffle will be $2 each.

I hope to see you there; the quilt show is a few months away now, so I will remind you closer to the time.

Bye for now,
Linda

30th Birthday Quilt

At the end of last year I was really busy with the preparations for my daughter's wedding because she got married two days before Christmas. Not only was I busy with the wedding but it was her 30th birthday three days before that!

I decided to make her a quilt for her 30th birthday but it was to be a surprise. I chose the colours that were in her lounge suite. I was very clever choosing the colours because I went to the furniture store where she had bought the lounge suite with my fabric swatches and matched the colour that way.

Star quilt on design wall

Here is the blog post I wrote last year when I was busy making it. It became so hectic and I was secretly sewing whenever I got the chance that at one stage I thought I wouldn't get it finished it time.

I didn't quilt it really heavily because I wanted it to remain soft so she could use it as a cuddly lap quilt. Even so the quilting still took ages.

It was all so rushed that I forgot to take a photo of it finished. I just have the photo of her when she received it.

Alison and her quilt

She said that she liked it, I hope that she uses it.

This is the label I put on the back, she really loved the label.

I was originally going to make her a crazy quilt with photos of her and school badges etc etc, but I was running out of time and I was worried that it wouldn't look very nice. But she was so thrilled with the label maybe I should have. Maybe I should start now for her 40th!!

Bye for now,
Linda

Cover Quilt

My quilt Holiday Waltz is on the cover of the latest Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

I was at the newsagent yesterday innocently looking at the latest magazines as I do from time to time when I decided to buy one. As I was turning away the magazine with my quilt on it caught my eye. I didn't notice it before and when I come to think about it, the magazine that I was buying might have been in front of it.

APQ Vol 23 no 2

It's APQ's Showcase edition where they show photos of quilts that have been in shows and they tell the story of the techniques and ideas behind the design of the quilts.

It was a big thrill for me and certainly put a smile on my face because I was having a fairly ordinary day before that. I was so excited that I actually told the lady behind the counter that it was my quilt. She said that she had been discussing the magazine with another lady at the shop and they were trying to work out how I had done the trapunto on the outside cream triangles. They ended up deciding that I must have bought the fabric with that already on it!! I then tried to explain how I did it and she was very impressed.

There is a two page article inside about the quilt.

 

 

I was interviewed for the article a couple of months ago now and they didn't tell me when the magazine would be out and they certainly didn't tell me it made the front cover. They usually like to keep it a surprise though. I was surprised!!

Bye for now,
Linda

Star Quilt

For the last month or so I have been making a star quilt.

It is going to be a present for someone and originally I was going to make a crazy quilt including lots of photos of the person but I was running out of time and I wasn't sure that the end result would be very attractive.
My next thought was a hexagon quilt, with largish hexagons some of which would include photos. When I was discussing it with a friend she said that hexagons can be quite time consuming, even the quilt as you go type.

So it was back to the drawing board for me. The latest Quilters Companion Magazine arrived in my letter box and as I was looking through the magazine a quilt pattern caught my eye.

Quilters Companion issue 63

The quilt was called Dark Waters and it happened to be close to the colours I was thinking of using plus it was a star quilt and I have always been partial to stars. I must confess that I also liked it because it was a basic star and a nine patch and so I thought it wouldn't take very long to make.

Dark Waters by Toni Brazendale

The quilt by Toni Brazendale was 89"x89", much larger than I wanted and it had a kite shape in the corner of the stars that I decided to leave out.

I re-drew the pattern in EQ7 and made the blocks and quilt much smaller. I haven't read the instructions in the magazine but the blocks must be much larger than my 9" because my quilt is going to measure 56"x56".

I strip pieced the nine patches.

 I had a few different combinations of strips because I added an extra colour than was in the original pattern as well.

Nine patch block

The block measures 9 inches so all the little squares are 1" finished.

I did all the nine patches first and then I started on the stars.

I was very happy this afternoon because I completed the last star and put the blocks up on my design wall.

Blocks on my design wall

I was really happy and had a smile on my face that I had finished at last. What was I thinking! I am not finished! I still have to sew these blocks together and then baste and quilt it and then put on the binding as well!!

I suppose I had better get sewing.

Bye for now,
Linda