The 20th
Anniversary QSGA Seminar was held at the National Maritime Museum at
Darling Harbour in Sydney, with glorious sunshine on both days.
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| Seminar speakers (L-R) Michelle Watters, Jennifer Palmer, Jess Wheelahan, Nonie Fisher, Di Ford, Chris Jones, Margie Creek and Gail Chalker |
The lecture theatre of
the Museum was a most suitable venue for the seminar, easily
accommodating more than 60 people who came from all over Australia
and from abroad. Di Ford, the owner of the now closed Primarily
Patchwork quilt shop in Victoria, provided a feast of quilts to
illustrate her talk on Primarily Quilts – 19th
Century Inspiration, her latest book published by QuiltMania.
Gail Chalker introduced
us to the inspiration found in the Greenmount Cemetery and sewn on
Baltimore quilts. She asked the tantalising question: which came
first - the headstones or the quilts? A visit to the cemetery and
subsequent investigation have not given Gail a clear answer.
As Exhibition Secretary
for The Quilters’ Guild of NSW’s first Quilt Show in the Lower
Sydney Town Hall, Nonie Fisher had lots of history to share about the
Guild's activities . She also spoke about her own quilting
adventures, including using the first rotary cutter in Sydney. Many
people recognised her very popular quilts, featuring applique and
pieced work, that they had made in workshops at the Quilting Bee.
It was wonderful to
have Jennifer Palmer present her talk on cataloguing and caring for
quilts. Jennifer has vast experience in curating collections,
including textiles, in many of Australia’s historic houses, museums
and art galleries. She was keen to share her knowledge to ensure we
could be confident our quilts were protected in the best possible
ways.
Chris Jones and Margie
Creek talked about the Miegunyah Quilt Project, and they even had one
of the not yet researched quilts from the collection with them. This
is such a worthwhile project and such an important collection of
quilts that we felt privileged to have an update on progress.
SCQuilters (Southern
Cross Quilters) is part and parcel of many Australian and NZ quilters
on-line experience, so it was exciting to have a potted history of
the group included in the programme. Michelle Watters, who has
organised the annual retreat since the early days of the group, gave
this talk.
Our final speaker was
Jessica Wheelahan, who describes her quiltmaking as a collage of
collected histories. She explained her design process from
inspiration to final quilt, illustrating her talk with quilt after
quilt – a most impressive accomplishment and a delightful way to
end the first day of the seminar.
On Sunday night, we
relaxed at dinner in the Novotel Sydney Darling Harbour. Margaret
Rolfe was the after dinner speaker, and she delighted us with the
history of the Quilt Study Group of Australia seminars, reminding
many of us about previous seminars and the talks given by eminent
researchers and quilters. No one present at one seminar in Canberra
could forget the talk by Sheila Allen, who wrote The Diary of a
Girl in Changi and made one of the blocks in the quilt. Not
a dry eye in the house, as I recall.
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| Karen thanking Margaret Rolfe |
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Throughout the evening
we enjoyed auctioning textiles and quilt-related items that had been
donated to raise funds for the next seminar. For the first time, some
of the more prized items were put up for silent auction, and the
highest bid for any item was for a small but exquisitely embroidered
Kantha made by Carolyn Sullivan. Many other items were highly prized,
including a selection of French fabrics from Brigitte Giblin and some
unique fabric designed by Jessica Wheelahan. Liz Bonner, Secretary of
QSGA, added to the fun by re-offering fabric she had purchased at a
previous Sydney seminar auction – a particularly ugly cheater fabric for
making Christmas placemats. Bought as a bolt, she decided to add
value to the fabric by offering it in bundles all pre-cut ready to
sew. Daphne Massey bought 27 placemats and intends to make them up
for the next church fete and Di Ford promised to bring her set of
placemats back – value added - for the next seminar. Something
about tea-dyeing them to death…
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| Auction in process with those Xmas placements on offer |
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Monday was another
beautiful day by the harbour as we gathered for Uncoverings, where
Trish Bloomfield, Melinda Smith, Carolyn Sullivan and Brigitte Giblin
uncovered their collections of quilts and the stories behind them.
What a wonderful visual feast it became for everyone, as quilt after
quilt was uncovered with their owners delighting us all with stories
of how and why they were collected or made.
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| Trish Bloomfield showing her quilts |
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| Melinda Smith introducing her quilt collection | | | |
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| Carolyn Sullivan and Karen Fail |
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| Karen introducing Brigitte Gibson and her collection of French quilts |
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