An Inspiring Speaker

Our monthly quilt club meeting was full of eager quilters ready to hear the lecture given by Kathryn Harmer Fox from South Africa.  A coach full of ladies had travelled down from Palmerston North, so the hall was fuller than usual.    Kathryn is a textile artist and related that she got her love of textiles from her Mother, who was a seamstress. 

Kathryn Harmer Fox

All her works start with a drawing, and Kathryn loves being part of the computer age, making research so much quicker.  Previously, she spent many hours in the library, taking home armfuls of heavy books.  We were shown slides of some of her work, and she explained how her pieces developed from the drawing stage to the finished product.  Kathryn works with collages, and using heavy free motion quilting to hold everything in place.  She is taking classes while here in New Zealand, and brought along a multitude of samples.

Samples of Post Card classes

These gorgeous pieces were on the stage, so I was able to get up close to them – but still wondered “how did she do this?”

The detail is amazing

We all admired Kathryn’s colourful orange top, which she had made,  but were astounded when she told us that she had also stitched her pair of matching orange boots.  Not too hard she said, and only took three days!  She concluded her talk with four observations.

1:  Inspiration, be inspired by what you see and feel.
2:  Repetition, practice makes perfect.
3:  Let yourself make mistakes, and learn from them.
4:  Laugh, and release your younger self.

Truly inspiring, and such a lovely lady too.

I was sitting next to Felicity and Jenny Hunter  so told them I really must have a photo of them both.  Felicity is a blog reader and came down with her fellow quilters on the bus, I often bump into her at quilt shows so it was lovely to meet up with her again.  And Jenny Hunter belongs to our quilt club and is the designer of the New Zealand Botanical blocks I have just finished stitching.

Felicity and Jenny H

After the talk concluded I had to rush to the kitchen as I was on supper duty, helping to serve the teas and coffees.  There was plenty of chatter going on as the ladies had their cuppas, and then the call went out, the bus was ready to leave for the return trip.  That really got them moving.  The kitchen helpers tidied up, washed the dishes, packed everything away, and then it was our time to wander home.  It was certainly and inspiring evening, but I draw the line at making boots!