We are so honoured!

We have been given the honour of hanging Melanie Martin’s award-winning quilt at our Garden Party tomorrow!

Melanie won the Best in Show Award at the 2015 Aotearoa Quilters’ Exhibition at National Symposium in Palmerston North last week with her quilt, “Is It Art?”
Melanie based her design on graffiti which she had photographed over a period of time, as the “artiness” of it fascinated her. She is aware that non-graffiti artists don’t see how these people are expressing themselves and their desire to create through their (often) vandalism. This thought then transposed to quilting where non-quilters don’t value the creativity involved – they believe that quilters “just make blankets for the bed”.
Melanie spent 3 months working 6 hrs per day, 5 days a week in designing, preparing and making the project. The words are all fusible applique and she machine-quilted the work, which is exquisitely heavily stitched.

This award follows on from her winning entry in the Aotearoa Quilters Touring Quilt Challenge “Growth” last year. This quilt was a smaller, but no less taxing, I’m sure, project showing a crane at a building site.

Our heartiest congratulations to Melanie! We are proud to be associated with such an artist.
Onwards and upwards………….