I headed off to Christchurch in New Zealand on the 1st October ready for Quilt Symposium. And wow, what an event!
So many tutors presenting so many amazing classes. The first day of Quilt Symposium there were 700 delegates on site at the Burnside High School attending classes!! My hat is definitely off to the organising group – so much to do and most of it went off without a hitch!
The school usually holds about 3000 kids during term time, so finding our way around the rabbit warren of buildings was ‘fun’ some days!
There was an amazing Merchant Hall ( and yes, I did buy a few very small things!) as well as a large exhibition hall and two smaller exhibitions. All were STUNNING!
The goody bag was great and had lots of great things in there as well as vouchers for shops in the Merchant Hall etc. I did give away quite a few of my goodies to some lovely ladies I had lunch with on the first day, as I didn’t need to add anything more to my suitcase!
My first class was a Kawandi class – I was very interested to learn this technique. Here is part way through the day. I had only taken some solids with me for this class. I thought it would be easier than trying to sift through my prints stash to find something!
I used a variegated perle thread in greens and blues which I just loved!
I loved this class and was very happy with how it progressed. One lady gave me a small piece of print fabric that had some of my colours on it. Another donated a piece of pink. And the lovely lady sitting next to me had the PERFECT Kaffe print for my centre fabric! So many lovely people sharing their stash and their delight in each other’s work. I went home from my first day on a serious quilty high!
This is how far I have now gotten with my piece….. almost finished!
My second class was Thread Sketching and this was an interesting class. My first practice piece
and then I chose a picture from holidays in France to try and recreate.
This was a bit harder!
And then we really got serious! The lady in front of me in class had a wonderful array of pictures she had downloaded from a website and let me borrow one! This is the little cottage in the countryside.
And my recreation using thread sketching as well as inktense pencils for the shading!
Quite a lot of fun!
My friend Therese (who was also attending classes) and I headed out to Christchurch CBD one evening and saw so many amazing things! This yarn bombing was pretty spectacular!
My third and fourth day class was fabric collage from a photo inspiration. This class kind of blew my mind!
From a photo (or more than one) we created an abstract / improv small wall hanging using fabric, stamping, stencil printing as well as stitchery embellishments.
The main sample from Deborah Boschert was from four photos and was awesome! I loved this – even with the circles of orange down the bottom!
The inspiration for this came from four photos, one for composition, one for colour and two for some interesting features. And a few more for some of the stitchery embellishments.
This class made me really look at some of the photos I have taken in a totally different light! (and started me taking even more esoteric pictures for the rest of my holiday!)
I selected probably my favourite photo of all time that I took in Venice, San Marco’s Piazza in the late 90’s.
These cute twins in their bright pink coats feeding the pigeons…. it really was a Kodak moment!
For this class I liked the arches, the birds, the twins of course and also the yellow chairs in the background.
I made a foam stamp of the bird and stamped it onto some fabric
I was really happy with my flock of birds!
Then we stencil printed out some arches, however I didn’t like how they looked or turned out, so I changed tack for my arches.
We also used a toilet roll to create different shapes, and dip it in paint and put that on fabric as well. It just had to be hearts for me!
So then I started to put it all together. It is a looong way from finished. Sadly my wrist chose the middle of my two day class to tell me that it was VERY sore from my full day Kawandi class : (
There are more birds to put on (looking the other way). More stitchery embellishments to do – each of the arches will get some echo stitches and there will be some echoed arches in between. Some yellow ‘seats’ as well. And of course, some seed stitch at the feet of the pink twins to feed the birds!
I can picture it in my head, just need my wrist to be better so I can get back to this one!
But the class was amazing and has made me look at my surroundings in a different way and value my photos even more!
This is why doing some slightly ‘out there’ class in an area of quilting you have never done before can be amazing. Learning new things, appreciating things in a different way and expanding your quilty horizons!
Sadly that evening I ate some food that did not agree with me and I had to cancel my last day’s class.
But then it was time for @thefabrichusband to arrive and our holidays to start!
If ever you get a chance to go to Quilt Symposium I thoroughly recommend it! Everyone I met was friendly and lovely and interested and who can go wrong with lots of quilting classes, great food, fantastic exhibitions and a holiday to boot!
Next time is in 2028 just outside of Wellington.
