Saturday, 1 September 2007

"Waggas Unwrapped"

We met again on 28 August.

Our exhibition name was chosen - Waggas Unwrapped - and exhibition arrangements are currently being finalised. Rather than put the mozz on it we won't say the places and times until it is all finalised. Needless to say we are all very excited.

To add to our day we had the oppotunity to see and enjoy two old quilts first hand.

The first was a wagga from Suzaannah Place, the Historic Houses Trust museum in Sydney. It is made of small pieces of tailors’ samples sewn together with twill tape which was originally dark purple with some pieces of dark green and fewer of black. The original backing was a yellow curtain fabric. This blanket has been widened by adding joined rectangles of tailors’ samples to both sides. On one side the sample addition was folded over in half neatly but the other side didn’t have enough samples so a cotton sheet was added to cover the deficiency and the original yellow backing. The tape has faded but the samples are muted blues, greys and browns to give a very contemporary, minimalist look.

The second quilt was bought in Atlanta Georgia a number of years ago by a collector who lent it to our group for the day. It has opened seed bags for backing. The front is an “around the world” pieced quilt. We enjoyed discovering how the maker worked by examining the block progression.

Everyone shared their A3 sized waggas which will form our display at the Embroiderer's Guild 50th celebrations in October this year: some were finished and others in progress (either in the fabric selection phase or in the head).

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