Done for Christmas!

Whew! What a relief! The last quilt is finally done! I am totally exhausted. I worked on 5 quilts in the past 7 days, including attaching one binding and constructing and finishing a small quilt with pre-made blocks. I have been busy for the past few weeks, but this last week was a marathon! I am even too tired to post any photos. We will catch up in 2010.

Now it is time for me to do some Christmas baking and shop for those last-minute gifts, and then enjoy my children for the few days they will be home. And maybe do something for me between Christmas and New Year's!

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Christmas, filled with the joys and blessings of season! God Bless you all in the New Year we are soon to enter!

Lorraine again

I recently completed this quilt top for Lorraine. She made it for a special young lady. I love it's simplicity, what a good way to use up scraps! Set against black, it absolutely glows! It always makes me wonder, why didn't I think of that?

It was a fun one to quilt, mostly freehand vines and leaves.

Hawaiin Style

Brenda made this quilt for a very special friend. She spent alot of time fusing the flower cut-outs! Her friend will be thrilled!

I chose to do some echo-quilting, as well as some freehand fill. You might even notice a few flower shapes in the white areas, something to break up the large expanse, to give me something to quilt around. The green solid was the back, you can see the stitching show up alittle better.

This quilt was fun to work on!

Mystery Quilt Unveiled

Last January, I had posted about a quilt I stitched for a guild member, but she didn't want me to post it until this year, after she showed it off at our guild Christmas get-together this year.

You see, the members each make a quilt block (or more if they wish), that has been assigned for this year, and they are all put into a bag, and whosever block is drawn gets to keep all the blocks. The more blocks you submit, the more chances to win! Lorraine was the lucky winner of the blocks about 4-5 years ago, and she finally got them sewn together and wanted to show it off.

She did a great job! I especially loved the way she framed each block with solid colours.

Cheater Tablerunner

My brother from Kamloops, and his family, visited us this past weekend. They made a quick trip to see all our family and especially our nephew's baby boy. I sure enjoyed their visit!

Since this was as close to spending Christmas with them as it is going to get this year, I decided this was a good reason to haul out my Christmas decorations. I am into "snowflakes" this year, so I picked up a few extra snowflake-themed ornaments. What I really needed was a nice little tablerunner for my kitchen island, but I didn't have time to "whip one up". So, I created one with pretty snowflake wrapping paper! That was fun! Today, after they left, I picked up some clear Mac-Tac to laminate it so that it will last me at least this season and be wipe-able. I am pretty pleased with it, at least until I can quilt up a "real" one.

Tess Returns!

Tess and her daughter dropped in today to pick up a quilt she'd left with me this summer. I am very proud of the way it turned out.

First of all I love the fabrics and colours! I love the pinks, blues and purples and the darling fairies! Makes me wish I had a little girl!

Secondly, the blocks are big, so it quilted up easily and I figured out a way to do it continuously, which was so much fun to do.

Thirdly, I used Rainbows thread, which I don't normally use, and practiced more swirlies (thanks Debra!) The shine of the thread really compliments the colours of the quilt as well as the sparkle on some of the fabrics. A truly magical quilt!

The ladies brought the twin girls for me to see and I've posted their updated photo a couple of posts back where I showed them as practically newborns. Man, they grow fast! They are so cute and huggable, and in spite of being preemies, they are right up there at the "top" of their class!

Thanks for the nice visit, girls!

Mom's Quilt

My Mom is not really considered a traditional quilter, but she has made many wool-filled comforters (washing and carding her own wool) over the years. I think one reason I fell in love with quilting is a quilt she made some 50 years ago, and I remember snuggling under it when we used to go camping. It was a string-type quilt made on a foundation, with a blue flannel backing and I can still see it in my head. I got so mad at her several years back, when she told me she donated it to a thrift store! Imagine that, the quilt that started me on this path in life, ...gone! Oh well, I'm over it now, and some day I hope to make a quilt just like it. I'd better put it on paper, so I don't forget what it looked like!

Mom continues to dabble in abit of sewing, and works with a local group of ladies who create charity quilts and pillows. Mom's job is usually cutting up bits of otherwise-useless fabrics and clothing to stuff into pillows. It is easy enough work for her and she enjoys the company of the other ladies.

Anyways, Mom made another quilt top last year, and I finally quilted it up for her. It will eventually make it's way to one of her grandkids, but for now, will be spare bedding for when they come to visit. For someone who hasn't taken a quilt class of any sort, she does a pretty good job! I did help her abit with some of the rotary cutting.

The photograph is showing Mom on her 75th Birthday a couple of years ago, with my sister Liz on the left and me on the right. Now you know where I got my profile picture from!

Tess again

Tess also dropped off this quilt top this past summer, she was giving it as a wedding present.

The blue fabric had breaking waves all over it, so I stitched an all-over pantograph on it called Waterworld. It was very fitting!

I love the simplicity of 2-colour quilts, yet they don't have to be simple at all! This one is very pleasing to the eye and feels relaxing!

Twins

Tess brought me these two quilt tops this past spring, to quilt up for her newborn twin grand-daughter's. I even got to meet them!

They were so adorable!

The quilts were of a pinwheel-type pattern, with a slight variation in colour from one another.

I quilted them simulataneously with a "stars and loops" panto and variegated thread.

UPDATE: Tess and her daughter dropped in today (Dec 1) so I caught another photo of the twins, at least 5 months later....

No Means No

Quilting is "my thing", and I want to be able to use it to express things I believe in, messages that need to be heard, not just for pretty things to decorate my home. Don't get me wrong, decorating is what 95% of my quilting is all about! I am not a great speaker, or poet, or songwriter, but I can quilt, and if it can touch one heart, one life, for the better, then it is worth pursuing!

I see inspiration for quilts all over the place. I have plans to quilt things I get in my email inbox, signs I might see, songs I might hear, fabric that begs to be part of a story. I came across the "No Means No" message while browsing college websites for my kids. It is put out there by the Canadian Federation of Students. It really hit a nerve for me, and I was so proud of the young people of this generation who were fortunate to have the support and education of this message. It just begged to be made into a quilt. Don't ask me why!

I stayed up till 3:00 a.m. or so, the night before our Quilt Show back in Sept, to finish up this quilt that I needed to make. It was very simple in construction and was not going to win any awards, but it had a message that I wanted to share with anyone who might not have heard it.

And it enabled me to practice printing out text with my inkjet printer, and I also got to play with my shiva paintsticks and rubbing plates. In fact, I didn't have a black paintstick, so I used a clear blender with a black oil pastel, and it worked out just fine! Makes me feel like a real artist !

Oh, and the reason I am posting today about is because I found a home for it! It is not the sort of quilt that I want to hang up at my house! I knew the colleges and high schools already have lots of posters proclaiming the message, so I checked out the local youth center, and sure enough they were happy to have it. That is me on the left, and Christine from the youth centre on the right, receiving the quilt.

Hopefully, you will be able to read the message from the photos, don't forget to left-click on the images so they zoom in closer. Or, you can check out the website: http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/nomeansno/index_e.html for more information.

FYI- I did not receive permission to use this message in my quilt (I did email them for permission, but no one replied), so hopefully, I won't get into trouble!

Left-click on Photos

I don't know if I had ever mentioned it before (and I'm too lazy to check) , but if you want to see a close-up of any photo in a post, you just have to left-click on it!

Amazing!

It's like I just learned this trick, or else I forgot all about it and just discovered it again! Ha!

Rebecca again!!!

Rebecca made this gorgeous Dresden Plate quilt, sort of for her husband, who said that he used to have one as a child. She did a lovely job appliquing the plates.

I outlined each plate by 1/4 inch, and stitched down the center with a circle. Then I did swirlies in the negative spaces and the border. Thanks for the inspiration, Debra!

A dresden plate is another quilt that is on my list of quilt to do!

Inukshuk

Miyo brought me this cute Inukshuk wallhanging. She wanted it done for the quilt show, so I used Lisa Thiessen's "Flurry" pantograph on most of it in a sweet variegated thread, then free-handed some snow drifts. Pretty quick and easy.

It's a really cute quilt! In time for the Olympics, too.

Denise, Again!

Denise started this Jinny Beyer Sampler Quilt over 20 years ago. She says it was her first quilt, that she made at a class taught by Muriel Neale (of Grand Forks) Can you believe it? Jinny Beyer and her fabrics are still going strong and don't go out of style! In my opinion, these are the most gorgeous of sampler quilts made!

I also took this class about 15 years ago, from Karen Holden (of Castlegar). This method was not rotary cut! You made cardboard templates, traced around them, cut approximately 1/4 inch around them, and carefully pinned the pieces together, matching the points long the drawn lines. It is slow, but very accurate. The best part was that by fussy cutting the border fabrics you came up with beautifully unique designs within your block!

Seeing Denise's quilt makes me wish I had used Jinny Beyer prints, too.

Ideally, I would love to have quilted each block separately and accordingly, but time was a factor (it had to ready for the quilt show), so I chose the same medallion to put into each block. Also, the design had an open center, so I was not fighting the junction in the center of most of the blocks where many pieces came together. It worked out really well! The sashing had it's own design, so rather than fight it I just followed the cable-like lines.

The border was pretty much solid, and I wanted something to replicate the onion-dome shapes of many of Jinny Beyer's border prints. I used the panto 'Arabesque' to help me out.