Overwhelmed

What excitement at the quilt show in Sydney yesterday. Thanks to the grapevine, a lot of you already know that I took out some amazing prizes with my quilt, Coxcomb And Currants.
I won first traditional professional, a special award called retaining the tradition, best hand quilting in the open category and best of show.

Here I am pictured with Greg Alexander, Managing Director at Bernina Australia Pty who presented me with the best in show ribbon. I still look stunned in this photo, it was hard to take it in.

I started this one roughly two and a half years ago and wanted to participate in this years show so I dragged out the UFO and made it a goal to get it finished never dreaming it would do so well.

I only had my phone on me to take photos but you might be able to see the details well enough if you click on the photos.

The quilt was inspired by one shown on Julie Silber's blog, the quilt complex here.

It got sold a few years back and ended up on another antique dealers website and that's when we tried to buy it to no avail.at that stage I had already started my own version.

Here are some stats in case curious minds want to know.

All applique was done in the needleturn method and the block on the upper left corner has one extra berry in a nod to the quilters from the past..

I used 2,000 yards of YLI thread in the quilting.

The background quilting is straight lines approximately 1/4" apart.

The grid inside the trapunto wreaths is 3/8"

The grid on the outermost border is 1/2"

The trapunto was done before the quilt was basted.

There are a gazillion circles, sigh.

 

Ask me anything else if you'd like to know more. Now you know why my blog was so quiet.

 

Special thanks to my husband and son who did a lot of cooking and cleaning so I could quilt.

My gratitude and thanks to the NSW Quilters Guild for putting on such successful shows, its a lot of hard work.

Bernina Australia for being the main sponsors and for the support they give to the quilting community. Thanks also to all the other sponsors who provide prizes and Expertise Events who makes it all possible.

Gosh that all sounds a bit Oscar speech like but I truly am grateful and also to my friends in blog land who always encourage and support anything I do.

Thank you Tulley for guarding my quilt.

 

A list of other prize winners are listed on the guild website. be sure to check out the categories by clicking on the aqua tabs at the top.