Sister's Choice challenge - Quiltfest 2008

This is the first year that Quiltfest, the annual quilting exhibition at the Royal International Pavilion, Llangollen, has had a themed competition http://www.quiltfest.org.uk/ . The exhibition is in it's seventh year and displays quilts in an art gallery, rather differently from most quilt shows. (Double left click any photos to see them in more detail).

Here's what I wrote for my entry -

Overlapping one block with another produced an interesting pattern, as the triangle square pairs from one block can become part of another. They also looked like butterfly wings in my sketch, so I decided to go for Japanese prints, with a panel of Kyoto’s Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) that I was given as a present. “Onēsan” (oh – nee – san) is the name given to an elder geisha or older maiko by her apprentice (a more junior maiko).

Val Shields gave me a kinkakuji panel as an "omiyage" present from her trip to Quilts in the Garden exhibition at Trentham last year, and I wanted to use it in my Sister's Choice hanging. Naturally, I couldn't find where I'd stashed that fat quarter, so I had to buy it again... I compensated for that by managing to make the rest of the quilt largely from my scrap box, using a scrap strip from the "geisha & waterfall" panels I sold last year for the sakura cherry blossom squares and dark green squares, plus those with the golden moon segments.

There wasn't much time to quilt it, so I did one of my variable grid machine quilting designs. I started by quilting the top and bottom sections (the kinkakuji panel) with parallel lines, a quarter inch apart, using a varigated "King Tut" cotton thread (blue, purple, turquoise and green). Then I quilted a water swirl through the centre, using one of Madeira's metallic shaded threads (gold & copper twist on a black base). I added a second set of lines in the King Tut thread, crossing over the metallic quilting. This gives an ever changing grid all over the quilt - like engraved cross hatching - and a sense of movement, hinting at swirling blossoms. Here are some details (slightly over exposed).

The grid gives a net-like effect over the fish pond, which reminds me of the anti-heron netting my kimono sewing teacher, Sachiko, had over the pond in her front garden !

The quilt is just 30in x 18in.