Exhibiting together to create Sustainable Creativity – Sustaining the Art of Quiltmaking. February 1st – March 11th.
Stellar Quilters
Stellar Quilters was formed after a Nancy Crow workshop, held at Stella Maris retreat back in 2002 – hence the name. We had bonded well during the week-long residential course and decided to just keep going. And 20+ years later we still meet, exhibit and grow. Our latest exhibition Sustainable Creativity focuses on sustainability; how we covet, obtain and then use our fabric to create lasting pieces. As individuals, we can understand our activities have a cumulative global impact. We have the choice to imagine new and exciting ways to bring sustainability into our quilt making.
Featuring quilts by :
- Kay Booth
- Bobby Duncan
- Merrilyn George
- Jenny Hunter
- Anna Prussing
- Dianne Southey
- Michelle Sutherland
- Carol Walter
Kay Booth
I started quilting in 1981 after a quilting teacher (Jennie Anderson) returned to Palmerston North from Canada, and held quilting workshops. Since then, aside from making quilts, I have been involved in our national quilting body, Aotearoa Quilters (formerly NANZQ) in the administration area, been a continuous member of our local quilt club, Rose City Quilters, and held the roles of President and other positions on the Committee. Over this time, I have been an eager participant in New Zealand Symposia since the first one held in 1984, and have attended others in Australia and the USA.
Bobby Duncan
I was born and raised in Wanganui and taught embroidery, crochet and tatting by my grandmother, and knitting and how to use a sewing machine by my mother. Quilting began in 1987 with my first quilting class. Having made a number of quilts but always having difficulty in quilting them, in 2001 I bought a Nolting Longarm quilting machine. In 2002 a master class with Nancy Crow was a defining moment when I discovered free form piecing and learnt that quilt police rules were made to be broken. I started to make exhibition quilts and in 2007 I attended the Judging Skills Seminar run by Jeannie Spears to learn what exhibition judges were looking for. To enhance my skills, in 2011 I completed London City and Guilds level 3 in Patchwork and Quilting. This led to a love of dyeing my own fabric and in 2012, with two others, I started Fabric by Three, hand-dyeing fabric for sale.
Many of my quilts have been exhibited in juried exhibitions through New Zealand Quilt Symposia and Great New Zealand Quilt Shows run by Aotearoa Quilt Association. My quilts have also been part of touring exhibitions to Japan, France and Canada. I also work as a professional quilter, offering my services to quilt tops for other people.
My current studio practice centres around developing the colouring and mark making on fabric using and developing a variety of techniques, from adding colour to discharging it, and using stamps, stencils and screen prints. Most recently hand stitching is being added to my fabrics.
Merrilyn George
Merrilyn George is a contemporary artist, working with fibre, and any other means possible to tell a story. Her mostly narrative work is influenced by events in history, concern for the planet, Maori art and the rich mountain environment in which she lives.
Merrilyn has exhibited and taught, nationally and internationally, and her work is in collections world-wide. She has had works featured in Quilters Newsletter, Quilters Companion, Down Under Quilts, Fabricate, Quilting Arts, NZ Quilter, Stitch, and Quilts around the World.
Merrilyn was recently awarded a Queen’s Service Medal for services to education and the community of the central North Island Ruapehu District.
Read more about Merrilyn’s art practice and life story https://fromoutofthebluestudiogallery.com/merrilyn-george-member-of-the-stellar-quilters-group/
Jenny Hunter
Jenny has been stitching in some form almost all her life, having been influenced by the skills of both grandmothers from an early age. She is well known throughout New Zealand as an experienced quilter, embroiderer, tutor and designer. Her quilts have been exhibited nationally and internationally and have won awards within New Zealand. Mainly self-taught, she likes to create original designs for both quilting and embroidery. Jenny owns a specialist quilting and embroidery supply business and enjoys sharing her extensive design experience and love for colour, texture and stitch with her customers and students.
Anna Prussing
Born 1948 in Nelson, trained at Wellington Teachers’College, acquired B.A.,majoring in English and Italian.Three years in a commune on Great Barrier Island introduced me to spinning and weaving, leading to a ten year full time weaving career, supplying many craft outlets, exhibiting at the Academy of Fine Arts, and The Villas Gallery in Kelburn, Wellington. Many of the wall rugs made at the time went overseas to New Zealand Embassies.
A back injury interrupted this career, but led to a new direction in textiles, learning to quilt and producing quilts over the next forty years. There have been a number of awards for colour and design, including Best of Show in 2008 for my Gallipoli quilt, and Best of Show Excellence for Nightwatch 2014. A retrospective exhibition at Pataka Gallery in 2010 showcased a number of works made to celebrate various events in my family life, and was followed by three works in Thrift, another exhibition at the same gallery.
Dianne Southey
I learned to quilt in the early 1980’s and opened a quilt shop in Palmerston North in 1987. Over this time I have designed and made many quilts and textile related items and have accumulated a huge amount of scraps and leftovers. As I hate throwing anything out, especially textiles, I save them and occasionally delve into the pile to create quilts. I have also acquired a collection of vintage linens from my mother and from Op Shops, as I feel sorry that they have been dumped. So much can be done with the linens, my pieces here are a couple of examples of what you can do to incorporate and embellish them with stitch. I love piecing, quilting, applique, hand dyeing and painting on fabric. I am a Life Member of Rose City Quilters, a group I love being part of, and have been Convenor for 2 National Quilt Symposia held in Palmerston North in 2007 and 2015. My life is very much involved with quilting and teaching quilting for various groups and National Quilt Symposia around New Zealand.
My primary interest lies in crosses and intersections, layering colour and playing with figure and ground in the works.
Michelle Sutherland
I got interested in quilting back in the 80s – before the days of rotary cutters and cutting mats. For my first full-sized quilt, I didn’t realise that American quilters used very thin batting so I tried to hand quilt some quite thick polyester batting – no wonder I couldn’t make the stitches small!
I’ve been an active member of Wellington Quilt Guild since the mid-90s. I’ve tried a number of different styles of quilting over the years from hand appliqué to English paper piecing to scrap quilts.
When the Nancy Crow workshop was advertised, I thought here was an opportunity to stretch myself. I didn’t fancy buying the 100m of different coloured fabrics so hand-dyed as much of it as I could – I even hand-dyed a couple of t-shirts that I was particularly proud of. The most valuable lesson that I learned from this very intense workshop was to trust my instincts.
Carol Walter
I was born and raised in Marlborough, before moving to Wellington. After attending the Nancy Crow workshop back in 2002, I found both freedom and discipline in my quilting – you can put aside the ruler but always remember those 1/4” seams… I moved overseas in 2009 living in the Middle East and then Japan where I was able to indulge in my passion for textiles. On my return to NZ at the beginning of 2022, I moved back to Wellington and picked up my old quilt life – which has been a joy.
Here is a sampling of the works being presented in this exhibition. A wonderful cross-section of creativity.
