Canberra Modern Quilt Guild held our annual quilt show at Craft Alive Canberra 2025. With more than 20 quilts on show, challenge quilts and raffle. Thank you to our volunteers, and everyone who stopped by to visit us.
Show Tour
Raffle winners
Congratulations to the raffle winners!
- Linda C – First prize – Aurora Australis quilt + gift basket
- Debra – Second prize – Japanese inspired coverlet + gift basket
- Jayden C – Third prize – gift basket + Bunnings gift card
The Canberra Modern Quilt Guild’s 2025 raffle quilt was inspired by the extraordinary auroras that have happened over the last 12 months. In particular, our own Aurora Australis inspired the colour palette for the blocks in the quilt.
The block design was based on the charming ‘wonky star’, a popular improvisational design for modern quilts that mimics the look of a traditional star block, with variable star ‘arm’ sizes.
Guild members could create their own variation of a 12” finished block with as many stars as they desired. There was an unofficial challenge for creating the smallest star. See if you can spot it.
The quilting completed by @MakeItQuilted uses the ‘modern wave’ design vertically to mimic the effect of the sparking curtain pattern often seen in strong auroras. The black thread, binding and backing fabric, invokes the negative space of the night sky behind the aurora.
Improv Triangles Challenge
The Canberra Modern Quilt Guild’s 2025 challenge theme for members is ‘Improv Triangles’. The theme was inspired by Nicholas Ball’s (@QuiltsFromTheAttic) design in his 2019 book Inspiring Improv: Explore Creative Piecing with Curves, Strips, Slabs and More.
In 2020, Nicholas hosted the popular #ImprovTriangleSewalong on Instagram.
Canberra Modern Quilt Guild members were challenged to use this technique, or any other improvisational triangle technique, to create their challenge piece.
This year, for the first time, members’ challenge pieces could be a quilt or any quilted object fitting within 24 inches square. This was to encourage members to think ‘outside the box’ and create what inspired them.
With thanks and appreciation to Nicholas Ball for permission to use Improv Triangles for this year’s challenge theme.
Please buy, or check out from your local library, Nicholas’ book INSPIRING IMPROV from Lucky Spool Media.
For those unaware of the design brief for the quilt, each block has been designed based on a corresponding square on the original Canberra map. The quilters have then created an improvisational style block, pieced together from fabrics in the colour range. There has been no boundaries placed on how intricate or simple the piecing must be, as it is their block, they can decide. Fun, right?
It’s so interesting to see how the map has been interpreted and there certainly is a lot of talent in the Canberra Modern Quilt Guild. I can’t wait to see the final pieces of the map come in at the end of the month.
If you are unable to attend the August meeting (Thursday the 22nd of August), please send your block/s in with a friend or you can send them to my address (
Canberra Modern Quilt Guild 