Summer Day - Lake Te Anau

So excited to share this wall-hanging - it has been selected by Aotearoa Quilters 

to be exhibited at the Ailsa Craig Quilt and Fiber Arts Festival in Ontario, Canada!

The sky is a blue poly-satin with a baby blue mesh overlay and
a couple of scraps of white netting.
I did not quilt it as wanted it to stay smooth like a clear summer sky.

I entered the wall-hanging in the 'New Zealand Through Our Eyes' challenge for Aotearoa Quilters. We had options of sizes/layout and I chose the 18" x 8' long option as I wanted to share a slice of the colours of my favourite part of NZ - Fiordland.

The forest on the mountain-side is made of roughly cut rectangles of various shades of muted greens to
represent the native beech forest that completely covers the hill-sides down to the western shore of the lake.
I free-motion quilted curves over the shapes with a thick quilting cotton to soften up the edges.

I had been pondering the theme of the challenge for a few months, but was pretty sure I wanted to showcase our landscape - this was confirmed for me while camping at Te Anau between Christmas and New Year...

The water is reverse-appliqued, using three layers of blue poly-satins or dress lining.
I quilted the ripples and then cut away some sections to reveal the darker colours.
This is really close to how the lake water looked as it moved on the day that we were crossing in the boat,
so I am super pleased with how it turned out!

...while in the boat as we crossed the lake one day, to go water-skiing at Brod Bay, 

I sat looking at the scene directly in front of me: lake, mountain, sky. 

I knew that was the scene I wanted to create in my wall-hanging.

Pre-trimming - all layers complete.

The wall-hanging was sent away at the end of January and exhibited at the Great NZ Quilt Show in Rotorua, before then heading to Canada. I look forward to seeing it again on 

show at the NZ Quilting Symposium in Auckland in October.

'Kia ora' to all my visitors via Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday linky party!
Have a lovely Easter!

Roadtrip SH8: Lake Tekapo

Inspired by scenes on our October 2017 road trip from Christchurch to Edendale, mostly travelling along State Highway 8 (after first travelling through Geraldine), I drew up some sketches with a plan to create a series of little art quilts.

I had just attended the 2017 NZ Quilt Symposium and was very motivated by the various classes I took; I could see potential art-quilt or abstract quilts in every landscape.

Lake Tekapo is a beautiful sight in October - gorgeous deep blue water, reflecting the Spring sky, surrounded by mid-Canterbury-brown hills with snow still covering the tops. I can't find the photo I took when I made my husband stop by the side of the road but this photo is similar to  what we saw...

Image source

A bit closer up: I used three blue shades of machine embroidery threads to
stitch in the water, and white thread for the snow.

The motivation to actually make the quilts came in January, from one of my Symposium tutors, Brenda Gael Smith, who is running a Monthly Art Project challenge via Facebook - so I signed up.

My plan: to create small quilts, about 8-9' square in size, using a mixture of piecing, applique, quilting and embellishments.

I really didn't know just what I wanted to do for finishing it off...I considered facing it, and then saw a tutorial for a perle cord thread finish, but have no perle cord to do it with. So I decided to try a serged/overcast edging. Not sure I like it really. I think I might make sure to get some perle cord and then I can try it out, as I do think it looks smart when done like that.

Sharing with my quilting friends at Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday and Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday linky parties. Hi everyone!!