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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Old friends in Print

Isn't it great when your favourite quilt mag arrives in the post?   My quarterly copy of New Zealand Quilter magazine arrived safe and sound, just as well I had remembered to advise my change of address.  And inside were articles about two members from my former quilt club, Pinestream Quilters.

Award winning quilter Heather Harding told of her quest to show quilters that they didn’t have to spend a fortune on new fabrics to indulge their quilting habit.  Heather has been collecting men’s shirts from Op Shops for quite some time and has made a series of quilts from them.  I remember her bringing the finished quilts to show the ladies at our regular Stitching Mondays and Quilt Club nights.  Shirt Tale Series No 13, a wonderful quilt of log cabin blocks, lots of tiny pieced triangles and stars won  the award for “Best Traditional Piecing” at last years Pinestream Quilters quilt show, as well as my vote for Viewers Choice.  Heather intends to donate these quilts to charity.

DSCF2805Shirt Tale No 13

I had a lovely surprise at the very last Stitching Monday I attended before moving out of the area after our previous house was sold.  Heather had made me a needle holder as a “going away gift”.  What a lovely thing to do for me.   “I’ll treasure it”, I told her, Heather is such a lovely warm hearted lady, always willing to help with friendly advice.

DSCF3397  A hug from Heather

The very talented June Nixey was also featured in the magazine, and she is well known for her love of scrap quilts.  She is particularly adept at using charm squares, and has taught classes on using these squares to best advantage.  Another abiding interest is teaching patchwork on Saturday mornings to her girls from “Shut In Stitchers” at Arahata Prison.  They have to work with what ever donated fabric is available and sometimes wait for ages if they want a particular colour.  June proudly brought some of the finished quilts along for Show and Tell occasionally on club nights.  She always remained quite elusive and liked to hide behind the quilts as they were being shown, so I never managed to snap a photo of her at all.  But here are three made by the Shut In Quilters, brought along to show the club some time ago, a strippy quilt, one made with a panel, and blue and peach pinwheels.  June also writes a quilt  blog, Junez Scrapz – do check it out.

DSCF4571Quilts made by the Shut In Quilters

How do you like to read your quilt mags?  When I receive mine, I like to quickly flick through to see what articles there are, then settle down with a cup of coffee and read it from cover to cover, even the ads.  I am a “foundation subscriber” of this magazine, and have every single one carefully stored away. 

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