In the outer suburbs of Hobart lives the creator of one of Australia's best quilts, which took more than 1,000 hours to make.
Katherine Jones started quilting just over a decade ago while seeking a use for leftover fabric from making clothes.
She began to enter competitions when she ran out of people to make quilts for and soon won three prizes for an original design.
Her most recent quilt, a filigree quilt entitled, All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, took more than two years to make and has won local, national, and international awards.
Quilting born from patchwork
Like any clothes maker, Ms Jones had piles of leftover fabric she did not want to throw out.
Starting with patchwork cushions, she branched into bargello quilts, a style where strips of fabric were sewn together to create a wave pattern.
She turned her focus to shows after a polite comment from her mother about a surplus of quilts.
"A few years ago, my mother said, 'Now Katherine, I really don't need any more quilts'," Ms Jones said.
"I was wanting to start entering shows as something to do with the quilts, [so] I ended up designing a quilt based on the idea of 'celebrate'.
"I entered it into the Tasmanian state quilt show and it won three prizes and I thought, 'Oh, I might be quite good at this'. That's sort of what got me started obsessively quilting."
Winning accolades
A quilt created to mimic the facets of a diamond, entitled Bling, won best in show in the United States in 2017 at QuiltCon, the world's largest modern quilting event.
It took about 200 hours to make and required hammering.
"I think I had nine seams converging at the one point, which made it really thick," Ms Jones said.
"To get the edge, the binding edge, round, I had to hammer them."
Even for her most recent work, All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, 200 of the 1,000 hours involved were spent finishing its outer edges.
"It was really fiddly and I won't be doing that again," Ms Jones said.
The quilt won best in Australia at the QuiltNSW Sydney Quilt Show 2021 and best traditional design in the United States, alongside another quilt of hers that won a best original design award.
It is featured on the cover of an international quilting magazine.
Not just an old person's game
Ms Jones, 50, said she was considered young for a quilter.
Tasmanian Quilting Guild president Pip Scholten said there were a lot of young people involved, even if those attending guild meetings tended "to be on the older side".
"I think the picture that everybody has is that quilters are all little old grey-haired ladies and, in actual fact, we're not," she laughed.
Ms Scholten said quilting presented social and learning opportunities for young people, as well as stress relief.
"It's got lots of learning in it — maths, believe it or not," she said.
She remembers the first quilt Ms Jones submitted for a Tasmanian award.
"Her work is amazing. She is a very, very talented person," Ms Scholten said.
"She's one of those people — when you go to a quilt show, you look at her quilt and go, 'Well, I'm never going to be able to do something like that'."
Sewing machines are often awarded to Australian quilt winners.
At one point, Ms Jones had 11 after winning several machines alongside those she already owned.
"You don't need that many sewing machines, so I ended up selling those and some I gave away," Ms Jones said.
Stored in suitcases
Ms Jones' latest quilt is stored in Tasmania with her other award-winning creations in suitcases, waiting for an opportunity to be shown elsewhere.
Ms Jones says she becomes obsessed with the quilts while making them, then loses interest as soon as they are finished.
"For me it's about the process, the joy in actually handling the fabrics and creating," she said.
"Quilt-making has always been like therapy."
