Challenge Quilts from the Long-arm Quilting Gallery - Part II.

This is the second part of the serie where you can see and read about the challenge quilts, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. The quilts were first shown in Birmingham and it is organized and presented by Beryl Cadman, (Custom Quilting) the European distributor of Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system and co-sponsored by Twisted Thread. Scroll down to see the next three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Leslie Carol Taylor: Peony Pickle
90" x 90"

"The choice of design for this challenge was in order to give myself plenty of scope for quilting. I wanted to make a pickle dish with non-traditional colours, and I love using sateen for quilting.

I first drafted the quilting designs for the different parts of the quilt, then digitized and eventually sewed them, using a Gammill® Optimum Plus with Statler Stitcher™ and the new Creative Studio™ software. I first designed the swirls in the melons, inspired by one of the fabrics I had used for piecing. I then decided I needed something a bit more structured and drew several versions of the peony centre, with various swirls around them. The borders, which partly go into the main body of the quilt, are made up of several different quilting blocks.
The peonies are quilted in a light mauve, whilst the surrounding swirls use a variegated thread. The pickle dish itself is stitched in the ditch using a lime-coloured thread, which gives an interesting pattern on the back of the quilt!!!!"

Leslie Carol Taylor was born in the UK and has been sewing for as long as she can remember. She officially learned to do patchwork by hand in France in the eighties. Whilst living in Japan in the late nineties, she discovered you could also quilt by machine and from then nothing has been able to stop her.
She has been back in the Netherlands since 2001 where she later met Maria Laza and Marybeth Tawfik. Together they founded North Sea Quilters in 2007. Her trip with Marybeth to the EMQE long-arm quilting retreat in Ireland in May 2007 was to become the most expensive holiday ever, as it resulted in the purchase of a Gammill Optimum Plus with Statler Stitcher.
Leslie has been quilting for customers since December 2007. She loves enhancing a treasured object entrusted to her, and turning it into something even more beautiful.
She has a scientific background which helps and inspires her to digitize her own quilting designs, which the Statler stitches out beautifully.
And she has even been known to still sew things by hand...
www.northseaquilters.com

Yvonne McKee: Purple Passion (detail)
90" x 90"

This quilt was designed on EQ6 when I was at the EMQE Retreat in June 2008 in Castletownbere, Co Cork, Ireland. I had intended to do a lot of the quilting freehand, but became enthused by the possibilities of the Statler Stitcher™ programme and proceeded to do most of it using the computer.

Yvonne McKee, 53 years old, owns a quilt shop in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has been longarm quilting for five years now and currently has a Gammill Optimum® with a Statler Stitcher™ and an Optimum. Her shop is called Quilters Quest. She teaches classes and workshops, as well as providing a quilting service.
www.quiltersquest.co.uk

Sue Philips: Checkmate (detail)
90" x 90"

"The quilt name is Checkmate, which I pieced and machine quilted on a Gammill®Optimum Plus."

Sue Philips is a longarm quilter in Wales, UK, and has been quilting for about five years. In 2008 she took delivery of a Statler Stitcher™ and hopes to offer all sorts of goodies to new and existing customers.
Sue’s company name is School House Quilting and the telephone number is +44 1633 401222.

Challenge Quilts from the Long-arm Quilting Gallery - Part I.

In the next blogs you can see and read about the challenge quilts, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. The quilts were first shown in Birmingham 2008 and it is organized and presented by Beryl Cadman, (Custom Quilting) the European distributor of Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system and co-sponsored by Twisted Thread. Scroll down to see the first three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Maria Laza-Bihari: Midnight Minuet
96" x 96"

"I love colours therefore I tried to incorporate the two challenge fabrics into a colorful palette of yellows, reds, purples and greens, moving from dark to lights towards the middle of the quilt. I was always fascinated by the dynamism of the Storm at Sea Pattern, the way it moves your eyes and lets you discover new patterns. This variation of Storm at Sea gave me the opportunity to play with the circles that formed as a secondary pattern. In the quilting I tried to emphasize the circles, by quilting in the ditch, then stitching an airy free-hand quilting around them. The stars were stitched in the ditch. The quilting was done on a Gammill® Optimum Plus long-arm quilting machine, which my North Sea Quilters friends kindly let me use. It is my first long-arm quilted project."

Maria Laza-Bihari was born in Hungary and has always been interested in handicrafts. She bought her first sewing machine with the first bonus from her first job. She caught the “quilting bug” about 10 years ago. She started with traditional hand-pieced patchwork and later moved to piecing and quilting by machine. She was one of the founding members of the International Women’s Contact patchwork group in The Hague. In this group, she met Marybeth Tawfik and Leslie Carol Taylor, who then all travelled together to the International Quilt Expo in Lyon, France, in 2006. By that time Maria was occupied with the idea of how to turn her hobby into her profession. The following year the three women established North Sea Quilters, which gives Maria the wonderful opportunity to combine everything she likes best, patchwork, challenging herself, working in a group and meeting people, making them happy and helping them to learn, grow and find their own ways in quilting.

www.northseaquilters.com

Emma and Pam Ablett: Dragon Flower (detail)
90” x 90”

This quilt was a joint effort. Emma Ablett designed and pieced the top, and advised on quilting patterns to accentuate the piecing. Pam then completed the quilt on the Gammill® longarm quilting machine. The quilting is a mixture of free-hand stitch in the ditch and embellishment, and blocks and borders were fitted using the Statler Stitcher™ computerised quilting system.


As the proud owners of “Quilters Trading Post”, Pam and Emma Abblett are pleased to offer approximately 3000 bolts of fabric. Along with this large collection of fabrics, the shop also offers a quilting service, classes and a fabric printing service for those precious family photos.
The shop has been open now for just over a year and a half and gets busier as each week passes.
www.quilterstradingpost.com

Cheryl Thomas: Cheryl's Star (detail)

90" x 90"

This quilt was created for the Long-arm Gallery at the Festival of Quilts, in Birmingham, 2008. This year the challenge was to create a quilt of 90" x 90" with two Japanese fabrics provided, along with any other fabrics we liked.

Cheryl Thomas lives in Southwest Wales. She is married with 3 sons and a full time job as well.
Cheryl had been a keen quilter for many years and in 2004 her Gammill® Optimum Quilting Machine became a welcome addition to her family. She loves her Gammill and regularly takes classes and attends EMQE each year to further her quilting skills.
Even with her limited time available she contributes to the Longarm Exhibition held at the Festival of Quilts, NEC Birmingham each year.

Long-arm Quilted Challenge Quilts in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen" in Rijswijk

Leslie Carol Taylor is answering questions about her challenge quilt

If you have read our earlier blogs, you know that we've brought over the travelling exhibition of the long-arm quilted challenge quilts, which were first shown at the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham. We exhibited the quilts as part of the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen" in Rijswijk over the weekend of 14 and 15 February 2009. This challenge is organized and presented every year since 2003 by Beryl Cadman, (Custom Quilting) the European distributor of Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system and co-sponsored by Twisted Thread.
In 2008 each participant was given two Kona Bay fabrics, a green and a purple, and a variegated thread. The finished size of the quilt had to be 90"x90". These were the only parameters and everyone finished their quilt as they liked. In the following blogs you can see the results and read about the quilters and their statement about the quilts.

Visitors at the exhibition of Long-arm quilting challenge quilts in the Patchwork en Quiltdagen, Rijswijk

Behind the Scenes of the Long-arm Quilting Exhibition at "Patchwork en Quilt Dagen" in Rijswijk

We have a very busy weekend or I should say busy weeks behind us. We spent the winter months organizing the Long-arm Quilting Exhibition "North Sea Quilters and Friends", which took place on 14-15th February in Rijswijk during the "Patchwork and Quilt Days" show. But it began a long time before, when we had an idea that we would like to show the Dutch quilters the possibilities and the beautiful work that can be done on the long-arm quilting machines. But which quilts shall we show and where to find a venue? That was the time when we worked on our challenge quilt for Birmingham, so it seemed an obvious choice to ask Beryl Cadman (Custom Quilting Limited), the European distributor of the Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system,

who organizes and presents the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham, if we can show these challenge quilts in The Netherlands as well. She was very supportive of the idea. We had the quilts, but no venue yet. Marybeth approached Jobina de Boer, the organizer of the "Patchwork en Quilt Dagen" in Rijswijk, who kindly offered the place for the Long-arm Quilting Challenge show and more, the opportunity to showcase 24 more quilts. Thanks to our long-arm quilter friends, who were very happy to share their best quilts with the Dutch public, we could easily put together the extended show. I can say this was a one-of-a-kind event. It was never before in The Netherlands that the patchworkers could see as big a collection of long-arm quilted patchwork than during this weekend. You can imagine how excited we were before the BIG DAY. It was nice to see that so many of you came to the show and were interested to see the quilts of Emma and Pam Ablett, Beryl Cadman, Myriam Debuscherre, Robyn Fahy, Maria Laza, Yvonne McKee, Tracey Pereira, Sue Philips, Leslie Carol Taylor, Marybeth Tawfik, Cheryl Thomas and Andreas Wolf in the Long-arm Quilting Challenge Gallery.
In the extended part of the exhibition the visitors could have a close look at the quilts of Irena Bluhm, Beryl Cadman, Marie-Christine Chammas, Martina Curtis, Robyn Fahy, Liesbeth van der Hilst, Yvonne McKee, Mary Palmer, Tracey Pereira, Andreas Wolf and ours, the North Sea Quilters (Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor and Marybeth Tawfik).
Look at the photos here and the following blogs, may be you can spot yourself ☺ And as you noticed there are some real behind the scenes photos as well!

Patchwork and Quilt Days in Rijswijk

View of the Challenge Quilts at the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham 2008.

We would like to invite you to the Patchwork en Quilt Dagen (Days) Exhibition in Rijswijk on 14-15 February 2009.

We are participating with an Exhibition of North Sea Quilters and Friends, which consists of two parts:

The Long-arm quilting challenge 2008
These quilts were originally hung at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August 2008 and was sponsored by Custom Quilting Ltd. and Gammill.The exhibition consists of 13 large quilts (90 inches square) which each incorporate two challenge fabrics in addition to any other fabrics the maker chose to use in their personal design. North Sea Quilters participated in this challenge with three separate quilts.

A Selection of Long-arm Quilts, Showcasing Different Possibilities
Quilts by Irena Bluhm (USA), Beryl Cadman, Marie-Christine Chammas, Martina Curtis, Robyn Fahy, Liesbeth van der Hilst,Yvonne McKee, Mary Palmer, Tracey Pereira, Andreas Wolf and the North Sea Quilters: Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor and Marybeth Tawfik.

Other Exhibitions During the Show

Feathers

Finalists of the International Quilt Competition “Feathers”, organized by the 14^de Carrefour Européen du Patchwork in Val d’Argent, France, where these quilts were first exhibited from 18th to 21th September 2008.

StiQS

StiQs is a group of enthusiastic quilters, whose approach to quilting has became more and more free with time. They pursue their own way whilst still adhering to some basic techniques. Although textile remains the most important material, it is certainly not the only one they incorparate in their work. StiQS was founded in 2006. All members completed the course “Speciality Quilting”, organized by “Kunstfactor” the Dutch national institute for amateur art. For more information see: www.stiqs.nl

Elly Prins

Elly Prins has been quilting since 1993. She has always quilted by machine and was the first quilter in The Netherlands to introduce long-arm quilting. Having followed courses in the US she has developed into a quilter with great experience in the field of machine quilting. This exhibition gives an overview of the stages of her development.

Vendors

Shops from both The Netherlands and abroad will offer a large selection of fabric, books, patterns and speciality tools during the Patchwork and Quilting Days.

Presentations and Lectures

There will be a lecture or presentation every hour on both days.

You can read more on our website www.northseaquilters.com under the News section.

For Dutch translation, please visit our website: www.northseaquilters.com under the News section.

More information www.exporijswijk.nl.

Information about advance purchase of entrance tickets: www.jobinadeboer.nl

We hope to see you at Rijswijk,

Maria, Leslie and Marybeth

North Sea Quilters Exhibition at Rooijackers

From the 8th November until Christmas you can see an exhibition of our works at Rooijackers, sewing machine shop/ official Bernina Artista dealer. You can visit the exhibition during opening hours from Monday To Friday from 10.00-18.00 and on Saturday from 10.00-17.00. To find out more about Rooijackers or download a route to their shop, please go to their website www.probleemlozenaaimachines.nl. Have a glance at the photos, taken at Mr. Rooijacker's showroom.
You can combine visiting the exhibition with a walk on the beach Promenade, a nice lunch at one of the beach restaurants and turn your excursion into a fun day-outing.



Maria Laza-Bihari

Winner of the Long-arm Quilting Voucher

North Sea Quilters organized a lottery among those quilters who visited our booth and signed up to our newsletter at the General Exhibition (Algemene tentoonstelling) of the Dutch Quilter's Guild (Quiltersgilde) in Arnhem. The prize of the lottery was a 95 Euro long-arm quilting voucher, which is an equivalent of quilting a 165 x 180 cm sized patchwork top with an intensive phantograph .

The president of the Dutch Quilter's Guild, Jeanne Hamers-van der Werff drew the winning lottery at the end of the exhibition on the 10th September.

The winner of the 95 Euro long-arm quilting voucher is Mevr. A. Sauer.

We would like to congratulate to the winner!

Jeanne Hamers-van der Werff and Leslie Carol Taylor during the drawing of the winner lottery ticket.