AQC 2023

It was so wonderful to have AQC (Australian Quilt Convention) back in Melbourne after having no shows, or a show up in QLD during the pandemic years.

There were soooo many people queued up on the Friday morning that my friend Kim and I went. (Apparently Thursday was just as busy too!)

Held in the gorgeous Carlton Gardens Exhibition Building, the whole event is a delight for the senses!

I met up with Lara from Make Modern Magazine and a few lovely quilters first up, and then headed to look at all the quilts. Someone said there weren’t many this year, but gosh it took me about 2 hours to get around to see them all, and I still think I missed some!

We were lucky enough to see some quilts from the recent QuiltCon too which was amazing having seen them on social media and to be able to now see them in person!

Here are some of the quilts.

Once Upon A Time was stunning….. gorgeous from a distance, but amazing detail up close…. the squares were teeny tiny… about the size of a little fingernail!

I really liked A Song For My Father – bright, fun and then with closer up detail of hand stitching was lovely.

Bananicklenation has had LOTS of social media screen time…. it was fun, colourful and made me smile!

It was the colour that drew me in with East of the Sun, West of the Moon… but on getting up closer there was so much to see! The hand stitched details, the quilting and of course, the asymmetrical edge to the quilt! Loved this one in so many ways.

The AQC Challenge for this year was ‘In Bloom’… these are the two prize winners… with Grow Around You the first prize winner. It was stunning! Lots of thread painting in there!

And, no, I wasn’t touching the quilt!! I was just wanting to have my hand in front to show the size of it….. teeny tiny! And matchstick quilting taken to the nth degree here too.

This was a collaboration quilt with each quilter doing a column. I liked the vibrant colours and improv.

This was actually my favourite quilt (a big call considering all the quilts!) but this one was just vibrant and wonderful and the colours morphed and glowed! My pictures don’t do it justice. The quilting by Leanne Harvey was wonderful on it too….. gave motion and interest without taking away from the stunning fabrics and piecing.

One of the reasons I loved it so much was it is an achievable quilt… I could do that. So many of the art quilts are so far out of my league (and sphere of interest) that they just make me feel inadequate as a quilter. This one gave me hope that one day I could have a quilt hanging in a quilt show!

And then I turned a corner and I DID have something hanging at AQC!

This is my block as part of the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild quilt that was being raffled off by Vic Quilters! I was chuffed to see my little block as part of this large improv quilt!

If you are still with me and reading, there were more amazing quilts, some I loved, some I just wondered why on earth would someone be willing to spend THAT many hours/days/years on a quilt??!

Yes, you read it correctly…. ten and a half THOUSAND 1/2″ hexies in this quilt!!! OMG.

The Honeycombed Hummer was a stunner…. I loved it and the ‘background’ quilting that added to and enhanced the quilt was awe inspiring! Stood and looked at this one a lot.

And there were more of course, but I need to finish this blog post!

If you ever get a chance to get to AQC in Melbourne, it is definitely worth the trip. The shopping was pretty awesome as well!