Being in the spotlight as the featured quilter for this past weekend’s Barnswallow quilt show was at first a bit nerve-wracking for Allison Halstead.
Uncertainty about having enough work for the display, though, soon gave way to excitement and satisfaction with the end result.
“I’m kind of amazed actually,” said Halstead. “When I was first asked, I didn’t think I had 20 pieces, and there’s well over 60 here.
“I think I was shocked once I started to collect them and get them, dig through closets at home … I was surprised how much I had done,” she said. “I only made three new pieces for the show. Everything else was finishing things that were languishing at home or retrieving them.
“It feels good. When it all got put up on that first day, that was when it really hit me. Up until then, it was just nerves and concern and worrying is there going to enough? Is it okay?”
The annual spring show of the Barnswallow Quilt Guild has been going for over three decades, and the variety of displays has grown to include all manner of fabric work by artisans, with group members coming from a wide region.
New this year was a special display of work by the Fiber Arts Network called For the Birds, and there was also the merchant mall overseen by Aspen Grove Quilting and featuring a number of vendors from across the province. And of course the Barnswallow’s Boutique also allowed members to have work available for sale.
Photos by Lorne Stelmach/Voice
Halstead shared that she was very much first inspired in her younger years by her mother.
“My mother is amazing … she custom sews, did design work, did all kinds of artistic endeavors throughout her life, and she always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted with a needle and thread.
“I would sew my own things like doll clothes … but I didn’t really do much other than sewing clothes or garments until I was probably in my late 20s.”
Something that caught her attention was English paper piecing, which involves stabilizing fabric pieces with paper before sewing them into intricate designs.
“I had seen something about English paper piecing in a magazine … and I wanted to know what that was and how to do it,” Halstead recalled, noting she then at one point took an introductory quilt class taught by Pearl Braun Dyck. “I was hooked. It was that one class that started me on this journey.”
She has especially been drawn to and inspired by nature with her work.
“I love nature and the outdoors … birds, plants, flowers and trees and all those kinds of things … I get a lot of inspiration from it,” she said. “It’s the colour, I think … it reminds me of fabric and thread. I like colour; lots of it and all different kinds.
“I tend to be drawn to a more organic style, a way of interpreting an idea I may have rather than a strictly geometric design,” Halstead continued. “I like to do a lot of handwork, so a lot of them will have embroidery embellishments, and I like to play with the colour that way.
“I don’t do machine quilting. I do some things on a machine,” she noted. “I’m looking to invest in doing machine quilting … it will be smaller things that I can finish up a little quicker and hang on a wall.”
Halstead now anticipates that the experience of being the featured quilter may further fuel her inspiration.
“I don’t think I’m going to do as many big ones as I’ve done before … but I’ll keep working.”
