QuiltNSW 2019 Shoalhaven Away Meeting

The Quilt NSW 2019 Away meeting and Pop-up exhibition was a wonderful success! We were thrilled to welcome the 130+ crowd to the Berry Uniting Church Hall (conveniently across the road from Berry Quilt & Co.)  Special thanks goes to Janet Brentnall and the team at the Uniting Church who make booking and hiring the hall such a pleasure!

Berry Quilt & Co. helped design the program for the weekend which included a special tour of the Meroogal Historic House in Nowra, the Arthur Boyd Studio at Bundanon as well as a trunk show by Local Art Quilter Denise Griffiths, local Textile Artist Carolyn Collins did a wonderful talk and demonstration of the eco-dying techniques she has been experimenting with.

The Red Berry Quilters hosted a delicious and very generous lunch for Saturday Meeting full house and we also set up a very popular mini exhibition open to all, featuring Denises Wildflower Quilts and Carolyns Collins Eco-Dyed textile artworks. Many people visited on the Sunday and bought tickets to the RedBerry quilters raffle which was wonderful! We were thrilled to welcome so many visitors to Berry, many of whom were new to these special attractions of our area.

Denise Griffiths‘  talk traced the development of her quilting style by looking at many of her early pieces and studies that she had undertaken in classes with well known Art Quilters, many at AQC. It was exciting to see the amazing range of work that she pulled out of her suitcases and interesting to hear how she felt at home when she discovered there was such a thing as ‘art quilting’ Denise has found herself mostly interested in finding a way to turn the picture she has in her head into a quilt. Most of these ideas are Australian wildflowers or more recently Australian Birds. 

RedBerry Quilter and eco-dyer extrordinaire Carolyn Collins conducted a talk about her dying adventures and ran through a demonstration of how it worked. It was fascinating to see the materials and equipment needed to make amazing prints directly from leaves and foliage. Carolyn had plenty of show and tell and was happy for it to be handled and passed around which was exciting for the audience that loves to touch, feel and look at fabric up close!! We were also treated to a display of Carolyn’s textile art works using the dyed fabrics. It was very interesting to see two textile artists working with the representation of uniquely Australian flora making work that was so different in techniques and approach. 

We were also thrilled to show off our wonderful shop to those members of QuiltNSW who were only visiting us for the first time! Do you know that as a member of QuiltNSW you are entitled to a 10% discount in our store?? I am proud to be a Regional Rep for QuiltNSW and I encourage you to read their latest e-newsletter and hop online and join the guild that does so many wonderful things for quilters all around NSW!!