MO Garden Challenge

 Before I reveal the results of the 2011 Material Obsession Staff Challenge  I want to show you a bit of what is NEW for 2012.  And, because we are slowly getting our act together, you can find the rest in the webshop!!! Material Obsession Classes ...

Material Obsession is all about colour so when we met Kerri Thompson a few weeks back we started  literally jumping up and down.  Kerri is a painter with the same kind of enthusiasm for her art as we have for our quilts.  When we couldn't convince her to get into quilts we decided, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and asked if she would teach at the shop.  I have always found that painters make great quilters so why wouldn't the reverse be just as true?What better way is there for us to discover the mysteries of colour and the reaction it creates than with paint!!!  Kerri has a great attitude. Her workshop is defined this way...Red Grass and Purple Trees release your inner mad scientist in pre-school learning to Paint.  This class will be a no pressure environment based entirely on having fun with colour and learning a bit while we are at it.  One day workshops will be scheduled into each term so if you are interested in trying your hand pop me an email. The first one is filling with fast with the MO TEAM!. So, we are in the process of setting dates for one day painting workshops each term. 

 

Most of the things we initiate at the shop are the result of one of our own desires. 
Just like with the painting class, one of our other new found obsessive passions is the New York Beauty.  We fell in love with this angular beauty while listening to Bill Volkening at The Quilters Affair in Sisters.  It is a traditional block full of history that looks a lot harder than it actually is.  I sometimes look at the walls of the shop and imagine them cut and chopped into New York beauty blocks and now it will happen. 
...we went straight to Chris Jurd.  Chris is an award winning quilter with a real flair with foundation piecing.  We have a few spots left in her workshop even though we are fighting for the seats ourselves.   If you want to learn the secrets to perfect foundation piecing....come on, you can follow the lines!

Now, if you want to start the 2012 quilting season right, we are offering Colour Workshops in January.  They are set for the 17 & 18 January.  The following Saturday will be a workshop using the techniques.  The workshops start with Reece talking colour theory and then finish with me working that theory practically into your stash.  The quilt is Soul Searching. 
Start the year on the right colour foot.  Learning about colour is always an extension of what we know already.  The purpose of this class is to bring it home with practice.  I always teach from my own experiences and I learned so much doing this quilt that I highly recommend the experience.  Questions? just ask...this is a port-a-class...by the way...I'll be teaching it in Ballarat if you can wait until August (oh yeah baby!  Can't wait for that...!!!)

Funny how life breaks down into the things we can't wait to do or the things we can't wait until they are over!  Like Christmas.  I have been moaning and groaning about it for weeks.  Then my Christmas miracle arrived in the shape of Oscar's girlfriend, Martina.  Who wouldn't get the spirit in their bones watching this...
Can't reach darling?  How about a manly lift to those high branches?  And then the crowning angel!

Since the tree trimming (that she initiated)  she arrives each day and looks with a thrill at the base of the tree then with big blue eyes wide she states emphatically, "Kathy, there are still no presents under the tree!"  Ugh.  Ok.  Today I will go in search of wonders to wrap.  It just took that special nudge, that insight into the promise of joy.  I mentally made a note not to be such a busy grinch and to start to get into the swing of things. 
Christmas, brough to you by the young at heart...

I have been waiting to show the results of our MO Staff Challenge.  I don't remember if I mentioned how hard this challenge was for me.  Each time I tried to work on it I ended up making a mess in my studio from one end to the other trying to decide what to do.  Questions in my mind about what the others would do plagued me.  So many options confused me.  Gardens are our favourite theme in an environment where themes rule the roost.  So, here they are:

 

I'll start with Carolyn.  This is the view of the fence just outside the front door.  Note the scissors which are a trademark of the shop although the bright red has now faded to just the shade of weathered that we love.  The fence, complete with weeds (wild things grow freely at MO) sits just this side of a park of Victoria Road.  Birds sing, leaves blow in the wind and people pass by unaware, determined to get into the fabric!  Carolyn is most known for breaking the rules.  Knots on top, wayward stitches, things attached to things...she is the devil may care of the group.  Try, just try to sway her to think any way besides what she does.  If you succeed...my respect is yours.  We love Carolyn and encourage her like a wayward child to be herself...it's the only way to be.
Then there is Wendy who also chose to do a Material Obsession shop portrait of sorts.  There it sits 200 years on, in a wonderland of colourful flowers beckoning  to all that love colour.  Wendy is our not so secret, secret weapon.  She is skilled beyond belief in so many ways that we often make faces behind her back (in the nicest of ways)  in awe of what she casually does.  For example, remaking clothes for people so they fit.  WHAT!  As she casually talked about remaking pants all I could think of were the number of pants that I have completely destroyed while trying to make them fit me.  When we want to learn a technique she is the one we turn to.  When we want a pattern to explain something...Wendy again.  She is calm, intelligent, kind and as wonderful as her portrait, full of pretty things.  Wendy is our over achiever.  We set the challenge and sweated it out.  She did two.
What can I say.  The eyes rolled in all our heads when she pulled out the second one but in our hearts we love her for never admitting to limits. 
Grace is our night owl!  She teaches workshops and beginners at night.  Grace is ALWAYS smiling, calm and generous with her patchwork.  At Hunters Hill Quilting she has led the group as president for two terms and then took on the challenging job of community quilts where she encouraged and processed hundreds of quilts for a variety of charities in Sydney.  This is no job to be sneezed at as it made hundreds of people smile too.  Grace showed off some new skills she learned while in Houston this year.  A funky border and some reverse style applique, fun distorted suffolk puffs and a bit of delightful machine quilting on the night creatures she encounters at MO.  This challenge quilt is full of surprising detail which makes it fun to examine in detail!

Then there is Cath.  Generally known for all things small and perfectly formed, it was her idea to do this challenge in the first place.  Cath's garden has a sideways growth pattern and is just as obscurely creative as she is.  I remember when I first met Cath.  She bubbled into the shop and had an unassuming look around.  It was obvious from that minute that she had found a place where she belongs...even today six years later...that my friends is a sign of courage.  Classically trained in drafting blocks and applique she found the new direcitons of templates and colour new and exciting. Her colour sense was very similar to mine, without the colour.  Sophisticated, interesting and full of unexpected delights she is a pillar at MO.  Cath makes small things that are big in nature...just like herself. She is  the designer of our Starter Blocks and I must say she has done a FANTASTIC job of identifying techniques for this program and making stunning projects.  Stay calm and carry on was first said while watching her march through her day.  At any given moment she is likely to burst into laughter at the oddities of life discovered with a complete fascination with creative ideas. 
Who would be surprised by this sweet garden representation by Liesel?  Her garden is filled with the impressionistic pastels of a garden by Monet perhaps.  It says daydreamer but with a steadfast determination to be organised.  Flowers appear and disappear in this piece as if blowing in the wind.  We will hang it as a reminder of one of our favorite MO 
members that has moved on to the real world and be happy she still has a few Saturdays to spend with us...always a member of the team.

                                

 

Gai joined us this year when her youngest son shuffled off to big school!  Gai had until this point satisfied her need to be busy by doing all the craft for the school fetes, her family of four and her large extended family.  She is the first friend I had in Australia.  When I first moved here, John and I lived in Thredbo while I waited for our first baby to be born.  While under normal circumstances this might have been a fun winter, I was pregnant and it was not an ideal spot to gestate.  After one month of unbelievable boredom I turned to her in panic and said..."PLEASE, teach me how to knit".   She did and I made some nasty litte outfits for my new baby.  I owe her a lot, not only for 21 years of solid friendship but also for the start of my "craft" life. I realised watching her make things that this was the new way to sanity for me in my new life sans career and as a new mom.  I still remember the day she rang me several years later from a bookstore and said I have a book in my hands that you have to have, Patchwork, by Kaffe Fassett.  Life changing moment really.  Anyway, Gai has joined the team this year.  She is the one that you see quietly shuffling around the shop with a rotary in her hand as she cuts and packs an endless supply of bom kits.  She is the one that, although relatively new to the team, is keeping us all organised and on track.  Not one to be distracted by idle chit chat, she gently reminds me of all the things I so readily forget.  She used Bari J's raw edge approach and made a delightful vase of flowers!  You'll have to wait for this one until we can get a photo. 

Then there is Bundle.  Bundle and I have shared the office end of the business for three years since she helped me to take over the solo reigns of Material Obsession.  It was a big shock back then, being in charge and I say now with no reservation that I never could have done it without her.  Many a time I nearly gave in to self doubt and despair but she picked me up off the floor and pushed me ahead.  She is organised, intelligent, hilarious (I mean really funny) and the kind of friend you never forget because she is always there when you need her. ALWAYS...and that means a lot because I often need her.  Her vase of flowers (also Bari J inspired!) says it all.  She is the vase and we all bloom from her friendship.  I will also tell you that she nearly didn't do this project.  I had to point out to her that it was slack of her not to no matter how BUSY she was...and she is the only person besides my mom that I think is busier than me!  I didn't realise it but I influenced her in that moment.  She booked into Wendy's workshop and had this made in no time.  That is determination and that is Bundle.  Determined to get it done no matter the effort. 

 

Finally, there is my garden.  Here I am surrounded by the left over bits of my quilts and the composite of all who enter the terrain.  Machine or hand pieced, needle turn or raw edge, machine and hand quilting...contemporary, traditional or anything else...it is all there gathered by the influences of quitling friends! My quilt is full of the women of MO and the gifts they give me each day.  Working in the shop can hardly be called work.  Firstly, we have so much fun sharing the stories of our lives...kids, grand kids or no kids,  we share the secrets of pride and shame with equal relish. We have suffered the tears and laughed through the joys of this year and many others.  There have been plenty of both.  As I type this I admit I am overwhelmed at how lucky I am to live in the MO Garden Challenge.  I hope all of you have found friendships through quilting that take you to the light from the dark.  That your life is filled with colour and the gift of learning new techniques.  I wish you the promise of joy found in quilting...a past time that  entertains the mind while keeping the hand from trouble.  If you aren't there yet, come join us.  Take care and all the best...k 

Comments

[Sal x]

WOW! I am speechless, the challenge quilts are amazing, every one is AMAZING!!! A reflection of each amazing woman who works at MO. WOW!

[Lynette]

Ditto to the above

[Maureen from Ventura]

What a beautiful post!! Not only the photos (Wow!) but also your wonderful descriptions of both the quilts and their makers.

[Rachaeldaisy]

Such beautiful gardens!!! Each one is so special and full of personality! I can highly recommend Chris Jurds classes to everyone and anyone!! She makes difficult things easy and she's lovely and fun too!!

[Jaybee]

Such talented people - such wonderful quilts - it always make my heart beat faster to read the blog and know that you are all having fun at the same time as working - it doesn't get much better than that.

[Mimi]

As always this post is like reading a chapter in a design text.....so much to glean from your prose... and such delight for the eyes.....

[cardygirl]

Love to see everyone's work...an inspiring place to be.

[Sonia]

I love all of the garden quilts, it is always so interesting to see how people interpret things so differently. It makes us all so unique. Quilting is a great way to meet other wonderful and inspiring people, also with blogs, like yours, where people can share their talents.

[Meg]

Laughing at myself....in the first tree-trimming photo, I thought Oscar and his girlfriend were naked! I spent a few seconds thinking, "wow, she's very liberal, but I guess Oscar must now be 22 or 23...." Somewhat relieved to see the swimming trunks and cute sundress in the second pic!! The staff quilts are gorgeous!! And I love, LOVE, that New York Beauty! Will the pattern go on sale at some point? xxxooo and have a wonderful holiday!

[Chris Goodall]

Oohh. Hopefully I will get your class in Ballarat later in the year.
Love all the staff quilts.
Best wishes for christmas and the New Year. I hope you get some downtime.

[Pia]

I am speechless ... Wonderful creative quilts... Who has designed the fabrics with the flowers used in several of the quilts?