February meeting - Griet Lombard

We had a great meeting on the last Saturday of February.  It was lovely to see all the members in their colourful summer clothes, and to have the doors and windows wide open.

Griet Lombard was our guest speaker and bought along many of her quilts and textile works to show us.

Griet started life in South Africa before moving to New Zealand several years ago, and her older quilts reflected the colours of her environment there.

Her work features lots of embroidery, stitching, threadwork and beading.

This quilt came about after a friend suggested making a butterfly quilt, and a beautiful bright blue butterfly visited Griet's garden in South Africa.

More recent quilts reflected Griet's journey to New Zealand, and her efforts to create a home here.

The quilt below was inspired by a crocheted afghan throw Griet saw in a magazine, and is made up of a series of heavily stitched mini quilts, made day by day, as a form of creative therapy.

Griet also taught her Faded Roses class for our members the following day.  To learn more about Griet, and the workshops she teaches, visit her website.

We collected a lot of Batik Bliss blocks made for Block of the Month. The aim was to use bright tropical colours, and these blocks certainly do look tropical.

We had 76 in total, so we split them between two lucky winners - Wendy Welsh and Tracy Carew.  Here are just some of the ones Wendy got to take home: