Sunday, June 30, 2013

Palmwoods Craftfest

Bestie and I headed up to the Sunshine Coast to check out the Palmwoods CraftFest.  A great show - all types of fibre crafts and some retailers.  I think this is only on every second year - but its really worth a visit.

Noela asked for some pictures - so I took ...quite a few:  Maybe photo overload...grab a coffee...

This is the display that caught my eye as soon as I walked in - that purplish jacket is covered in embroidery - maybe brazilian style - lots of flowers with bullion types of stitches - I should have taken a close up...


This quilt gave me a few ideas for a project I want to work on next year...

 a gorgeous pouch / purse

This quilt was very large - perhaps 6' x 6' and each block is hand done - the birds are embroidered with quite a fine thread and the backgrounds are hand quilted in patterns that really give the whole thing a lot of movement.
(It was hard to stand back enough to get a good photo) - I thought this was fantastic.


Here is the detail of one block

Next to this quilt was another quilt (done by the same lady) that was absolutely covered in hand embroidery - this time she started with a panel and toned down the strong colours in the panel to something a lot softer, then added the blocks & borders around it to make another very large quilt.

This is a section of the panel she started with
and this is a similar area of the quilt.  Perhaps you can see the entire flower is covered with feather stitch.  The purple leaves at the top were covered in a back stitch and all the small flowers were covered in satin stitch - mainly using variegated threads.
Amazingly neat and beautiful colours.


here is the whole quilt


and one of the side panels


The quilting (professionally done) was also amazing - not just the diagonal lines you see in the photo above but also some Chinese Symbols in circles.
We spent a lot of time looking at this - had there been a Viewers Choice - I'm sure this would have won the prize.

Another group of small quilts that caught my eye were about 40cm square of flowers that had been entirely covered with machine stitching.  I love strelitzias - so this was my favourite..


and here is the detail....



and one of the others in the group.



I also saw this lovely cross stitch of patchwork blocks


 and a group of objects made with coiled fabric tubes. 

 I also loved this City Scape - I think it was drawn onto the fabric then machine stitched and embellished.


Palmwoods seems to be a small villagey sort of area - the show had a lot of sections where the sign indicated that tutors had come in and given classes on a lot of these techniques  - there were more than I have showed here - like weaving using natural items like banana leaves and felted wool including seed pods.

It wasn't a huge area - but we took quite a while to take it all in.


And no trip to Palmwoods is complete without a slight deviation to Forest Glen.... 


and we were really lucky - because it was the last day of the Quilters Trail (a Shop Hop that went for the month of June) - they were open past the normal closing time of 2pm - we arrived about 10 to 2.!!!
and I was very restrained and only bought one packet of Theodora Cleave buttons.

Just as well Lynette Anderson's shop closes at 2pm - that could have been more dangerous.

A great day - I think I need to retire to Palmwoods - imagine how many UFOs I could accumulate then!




5 comments:

Fiona said...

What a fun day and such amazing handiwork to see... the detail and patience required!
Hugz

Anonymous said...

thankyou so much Susan for sharing,i love all the quilts you have shown,they are amzing the work that has gone into them.xx

Maureen Clare said...

Wonderful photos and great descriptions. I feel like I was actually there.....hang on, I WAS there. Super day Bestie

Tatkis said...

Wow, thanks for sharing! It surely was a great event (and the embroidered quilt and cross stitching both look fantastic!)

Hugs,
Tatyana

Michelle Ridgway said...

Great photos. Thanks for the tour....some wonderful work.