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This is just in from Owen Calverley, organizer of the International Quilt Convention Africa which will be held July 27-29 in Johannesburg, South Africa, about the Dreams Challenge:
Hello IQCAfrica fans
Entries for the Dreams quilt challenge officially closed on 1 May. Since then however, we have been receiving frantic calls and emails from quilters who missed the deadline. Rather than have UFO’s lying all over Africa, we have extended the deadline until Tuesday 15 May.
The following is addressed to all quilters living in Africa:
If your entry is almost finished or even only just begun, you have another 12 days to get it ready and photographed! Just in case you missed the notice, the Dreams exhibition will be also going to France in September for exhibition at the very prestigious European Patchwork Meeting. After IQCAfrica 2012 we will pack up the entire collection of Dreams quilts and personally escort them to France. Will one of YOUR quilts be one of them??
Before sending your entry, check the rules and requirements here to save yourself and us much time and agony: http://iqcafrica.ning.com/page/quilt-challenge
Send your entries to: challenge@iqcafrica.com – we are watching that mailbox for your entry!
Best wishes
The IQCAfrica Team
PS: If you HAVE sent in an entry but not yet received acknowledgement of receipt from us, please contact us immediately at challenge@iqcafrica.com or tel 0860 62 63 62 during office hours.
Visit IQCAfrica at: http://iqcafrica.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network and while you’re there, sign up for some of the fabulous workshops and lectures that will be on tap. Let’s ALL go to South Africa for the IQCAfrica!!
PS: Notice from the submission guidelines that it is only the Entry form that must be submitted by May 15, not the actual quilt itself.
Kenya Quilt Guild member and Past Chairwoman Diane Bannister is finishing her course work for a Master of Public Health Leadership Degree from the Uganda Christian University. The program is focused on Save the Mothers and Safe Motherhood.
Diane’s class asked her to make a wall hanging to be presented to the facility as a gift from their class. She enjoys the fun fabric in the background that shows all the women and some mothers with children.
In Africa, a woman has a 1 in 16 chance of dying due to pregnancy or delivery related complications. We need to change this to save the mothers of Africa. A mother plays such an important role in society and family that her death has very strong negative consequences for both.
The Kenya Quilt Guild is very proud of our member, Diane Bannister, and we wish her well in her academic endeavours!
Aurifil Threads has a great new quilt contest going on–and the good news is that you do not have to send in a quilt in order to win!
Check it out now on the Aurifil Threads Facebook page, and see the fantastic gifts they are about to award as prizes: Aurifil Thread packages!!
Here’s a tip: send in a close-up photo of your quilt that shows your thread-work off to best advantage.
Good luck!
This is just in from Owen Calverley, one of the organizers of the IQCAfrica 2012:
How are your fellow Kenyan quilters progressing with their Dreams challenge quilts? I really hope there will be many submissions from them (and you too …) After they have been exhibited at IQCAfrica, we will be taking a selection of those quilts over to France to the 18th European Patchwork Meeting in St Marie-aux-Mines in September 2012. Quilts must travel!
Come on, KQG members–let’s show the world our stuff!!
For our September meeting, we met back at EAWL Headquarters at WEAL House on Bishop’s Road in Nairobi. We welcomed eight new visitors and we hope to see them all come back again for next month’s meeting!
Chairman Neela Shah was well organized with an agenda of announcements and topics for discussion. Amongst these were notices that the Library will begin offering two options in January. Members can pay KES 1,000/= in advance and check out 20 books during the year, or they can pay a charge of KES 100/= for books and KES 150/= for DVDs. That works out to be more expensive if the member uses the library very much.
Also, our membership dues will rise in January to KES 1,500/=. This is consistent with rising costs of venue rentals and activities throughout Kenya, and it seems to be coming as no surprise to anyone!
Our African Challenge quilts were received by Vice Chairman Martine Chamorel, who logged each one in for judging by our newly certified South African Quilters Guild judges, Gill Rebelo and Dena Crain. All African Challenge quilts will be exhibited at our October meeting, and prizes (vouchers applicable to quilt workshops hosted by the Guild) will be awarded to winners of the First and Second Place Judge’s Awards and the Viewer’s Choice Award as selected by the membership present at the October meeting. Be sure to attend and cast YOUR vote!
We had a brief show-and-tell, with the lovely quilts you see below displayed:
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- Rajminder Kaur Kalsey’s Darned Quilt
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- Rowena Buxton’s Kikoy Quilt
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- Veena Sennick and her quilt
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- Gill Rebelo’s Square in a Square Quilt
Neela informed our members that for our October meeting we would have Paula Benjaminson as our guest speaker. Coming to us from Gabon, Paula will be teaching some very interesting quilt workshops on stamp printing and mixed media in quilts; dates, times and place to be announced. Check our 2011 Quilt Workshop Schedule for more details as they become available.
Neela also called for a show of hands of those who would be interested to attend a retreat weekend for quilters some time next year. The plan is to identify and book space at a resort lodge somewhere outside of Nairobi proper, thus giving us a chance to “get away from it all” for a few days of intensive quilt making. A surprising number of hands went up in approval of this idea, so we will be seeking an appropriate place and time to hold such a working retreat and will publish more information here as soon as possible. Anyone who can suggest a great place for this retreat is asked to contact us through the Contact Form in the sidebar at left; many thanks in advance for your suggestions!
Chairman Neela Shah and Guest Speaker Dena Crain
Our guest speaker for the September meeting was Dena Crain, who gave a digital presentation called “The World of Color.” Her talk described the difference between value and hue, showing us all how important value is to quilt design. Her slides showed some of Dena’s quilts as expressions of particular color schemes to help us all understand how color schemes are developed. Dena’s talk gave us a mental device for remembering how light and color work as a globe, with the north/south axis as a line of grays running from white to black with no hues added, and the color wheel serving as the Equator. This visualization can help quilters understand how to select contrasting colors, build color schemes, and incorporate stronger value contrasts into their work.
Then Dena presented a brief display of photos of quilts she and Gill Rebelo had seen exhibited at the South African National Quilt Festival in Stellenbosch in June of this year. This five-minute presentation was enough to convince us of the talent of South African quilters, and their emphasis on rich surface texture and embellishment. We were all mightily impressed by the South African quilts, and we are now challenged to outdistance them!
The next Kenya Quilt Guild meeting must be postponed until Friday, October 28. The 20th of October is Kenya’s national holiday, Kenyatta Day, and the fourth Thursday when we had planned to hold the meeting turns out to be Hindu festival of lights Diwali. Everyone present agreed that holding our meeting on the next day, October 28, would be acceptable, so we are making arrangements to hold the meeting at Shalom Centre (EAWL Headquarters is occupied every Friday).
KQG Members, please note: The deadline for completion of your African Challenge Quilt has been postponed until our regular monthly meeting on September 15, 2011. This extension of time should ensure that we receive the best possible entries, and plenty of them. Use your summer holidays wisely, and work on your African Challenge Quilt!
"Adwinasa: All The Motifs Are Used Up" by Magie Relph
Every year, members of the Kenya Quilt Guild participate in a quilt challenge event. The quilt challenge for 2011 is to make an African Quilt. From our good friend Magie Relph has come the following challenge description:
Use the name or idea of an African myth, legend, folk tale or god as a basis for a quilt. The quilt does not necessarily have to be pictorial, showing the actual story of the legend. Think about the subject of the story and see if it can lead you to depict the idea of the theme in a different way.
Perhaps you could use certain traditional blocks to represent specific ideas? What about the use of colour to represent certain ideas? Blue- the sky, brown, red ochre- the earth, are simple colour translations. What about using symbols…
Your finished African Challenge Quilt can be any shape, but it must be no larger than 2,304 square inches in area. For example, you might make a square quilt measuring 48″ x 48″ (2,304 square inches). A quilt 32″ wide may be no longer than 72″. To find the correct proportions to maximize the area, simply divide 2,304 square inches by the width or height of your intended quilt. The answer will be the correct remaining dimension: 2,304 sq. in. / 27″ = 85″ and so on. Your quilt need not be this large; smaller quilts will also be most welcome.
If you would like to participate and join in the fun, you might like to have a look at a few websites that can provide some inspiration:
- Indigenous People of Africa and America’s Overview of Kenyan Folklore
- Kikuyu Fables and Legends
- Myths Encyclopedia’s African Mythology
- Kiki Amedja’s African Legends
- Godcheckers (what fun!) African Gods
For others that address notions of “what is an African quilt?,” take a look at these:
- Dena Crain’s What Makes an African Quilt “African?” Tutorial
- Google Images African Quilts
- Magie Relph’s The African Fabric Shop
- The St. Theresa Textile Trove
- The South African Quilters Guild
Then, build up your stash of African fabrics, push your imagination to come up with new design ideas, and come join the fun!
Challenge quilts must be completely finished and ready for display by June 1, 2011. A prize will be awarded for the best quilt. Get started NOW!
