Mixed Media, Nova Scotia and retail therapy

This is the flower arrangement at the entrance to the exhibition in Waikanae put on by Kapiti Coast Quilters.

My friend Jann and I finished teaching at the prison, had a tasty lunch at Kaizen in the Pataka complex in Porirua and headed north.  It was a beautiful day, everywhere were signs of spring growth.

Jenny has a full report of the Exhibition plus photos galore so I will content myself with showing you the results of a bit of retail therapy.

I honestly can't remember when I last bought fabric for myself and I have never, never bought a range of any one designer - so, hey if you are going to break the rules, you might as well go the whole nine yards!

I couldn't resist this packet of threads, they will be great for machine quilting some of my tops................

They are Rowan, amybutler - colours hand picked by Amy, so how could I go wrong?

This fabric just appealed and as I said to Jann when she was dithering a bit about buying something, "Be strong - go ahead and buy it"

Actually these fabrics look very much like some of my vintage fabrics so I shall have no difficulty finding fabric to go with them; I think they might need a bit of orange to give them a lift.........

I bought the thread and fabric from the Bernina shop at Raumati - they were one of the merchants at the exhibition.

We then went to the Mixed Media exhibition at the Kapiti Law Gallery where Diana Bahler, a friend from way back, had several pieces on display.  There were also paintings and pottery.

I chose four of Dana's to share with you; she had worked on them at our group meetings fielding a plethora of advice from the rest of us....

This is "Woman Constrained" - the enlargement if you click on it will show more detail, as it will with any of the works.

This is "Written on the Wind".

I find this one very tender and almost sad, "Last Rose" and my personal favourite - "Ice Strata"

Diana has several other pieces in the exhibition, so there is plenty more of her work and the others for you to see.  The Gallery is on the main street, on the left driving north, just before you get to Fibre Flair!
and the exhibition is open until the end of November.

My last blog was about Halifax and my visit there, and I had a lovely email from Linda telling me that the shop Suttles and Seawinds is at Mahone Bay - and it's still there and that the flower on the magnet is the Mayflower and it's the provincial flower of Nova Scotia.  I then just had to have a look among my club badges and found these -

The Mayflower Handquilters - Nova Scotia.  Did you ever swop badges when you went on holiday?

Now for a little quilt - made a lifetime ago, one of the first I pieced on the machine using squares that were given to me by a lovely lady who had a dress shop in Hataitai - you know the kind of small, local shop where the owner could tell at a glance if she had something that would suit you.  Was her name Helen? I can't remember, but she never put me wrong - I used to call in just for a chat, so when I started on my patchworking she happily gave me some scraps -

Caravan Curtains quilt

The pale centre squares are actually tee shirt material and the striped inner border was a most unusual fabric - I once saw it as curtains on a very, very old caravan!  I think it's the only quilt I ever bound with bias binding - because I curved the corners and it is hand quilted; one square at a time - it never occurred to me to join those lines of diagonal quilting!

Nice talking with you, thanks for stopping by
June