National Quilting Symposium - Christchurch 5-10 October 2017

I feel very lucky to have been able to attend five days of wonderful tutorials during these school holidays, at the National Symposium in Christchurch.

I loved every one of the five one-day classes I had. I got to spend time with five talented NZ and international quilt artists, learning some of their awesome techniques.  Each lady generously shared her knowledge and skills and was so supportive and encouraging of us as we learnt from them.

Below are some pictures of the projects I worked on - these Prayer Flags will be hung up in my sewing room once I get my machine back from its service tomorrow and put a running stitch along the tape.

Finished! Prayer Flags - tutor Judy Coates-Perez

Judy has posted a video of the photos she took on the day (my flags are the cover shot!!)

We hand dyed, stamped and printed our fabrics.

I had a class with head judge, Brenda Gael Smith, for her Serendipity Circles class.
We all tried the fused block and then the pieced block, before carrying on with whichever technique
we preferred to use to make our own set of blocks.

I chose to do the pieced circles using some of my blue and turquoise scraps
 - this will become a large lap quilt in a couple of weeks' time hopefully!

One of my classes was with Pat Archibald to create a version of her Auspicious Symbols wallhanging,
based on the Hong Kong skyline and elements of Chinese art.
We used a stencil and paint sticks to put a good luck symbol under our sun or moon
before stitching around it with metallic thread.

I still have to do some quilting of the skyscrapers and then couch the edges of them with
some metallic thread before adding some 'windows' with foil, then I will finish the edges to make a wallhanging.

(Half of our group - photo via Pat Archibald on Facebook)

I had picked a class for Pasifica-themed free-motion quilting with Donna Ward -
a great choice as it turned out as she won three major awards including Best in Show, Best Piecing and Best .

We worked on a large piece of silk to practice our motifs.
I will finish this off to hang it on our bedroom wall.

My fifth class was with Lyric Kinard for her 'Abstract-a-Licious' class.
She took us through some exercises about the visual language of art and we
created our own 'postcard' of abstract art - watch this space (aka my blog) to see how this
looks once I have added the black handstitching that I have got planned for it!

#patarchibald #brendagaelsmith #judycoatesperez #donnaward #lyrickinard