Christmas Past!

Hi everyone in bloggerland!  Again, it seems forever that I was here.  Seems life gets busier and time flies by. 

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  I said good-bye to the last of our houseguests this morning, and this is the first time I've been alone in ages!  It was an exhausting December, but well worth it!  I am thankful that I have family and friends to get together with.

Just wanted to share with you what projects I've been working on recently. 

 I had some time to work on ideas that have been smouldering in the back of my mind. 

We'll start with the woven quilts.  At our longarm meeting in November, we played with making a woven background from "Simply Stunning Woven Quilts" by Anna Faustino.

I started with 2 fat quarters of shaded fabrics

This is how it looked after the initial weaving.

I satin-stitched in between the lines, and played with Carol Taylors circle techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

I fused a photo of my son Brad onto another one of the weavings.

Tuli

Brad got this wallhanging for Christmas, while my son Jeff's girlfriends got this one of Tuli, her dog.  I didn't quilt hers, as there were up to 6 layers of fusible, so I guess I can't call it a "quilt"!

 For my son Jeff, I started this wallhanging last year, and finished it in time for his Christmas gift. 

I can't wait to make some more me-time for quilting!

Spokane WA Quilt Show 2011

Last weekend I attended the Spokane Quilt Show.  I took as many photos as I could, and have posted 755, and still didn't get all the quilts!

Lots more quilts to go onto my "to-do" list!

Enjoy the slideshow on the right.

Still catching up

I had a look at my list of quilts to blog about, and I am still so far behind!

I bumped into a few of the clients at our local quilt show, and I hope they don't think their quilts aren't worthy of the recognition!

So, I'll resume with Bev's first quilt.  She is a natural-born quilter, I'd say, as she didn't use a pattern, she just made up the layout on her own, and I was very impressed!

She used a Laurel Burch fabric with all it vibrant primary colours, and we chose to use a bright variegated thread, with a whimsical stars and loops pantograph across the whole thing.

Bev has since donated the quilt to a charity quilting group to use as a fund-raiser.  She has a very generous heart, common to well-seasoned quilters!

Nelson Quilt Show 2011

Yes, it's been awhile since I posted last!  I was busy enjoying the last of summer, and busy quilting in anticipation of our local quilt show.

I'm putting up another slideshow in the column at the right, so you can check out the quilts via my web album.  

Maybe later I will have time to make some comments regarding the quilts. 

Hope you enjoy the show!

My first quilt from a MAN

I know there are many men out there who quilt, it's just that I don't know any personally!  At least, until Ron came along. 

He is an adventurous sort of fellow, and when his daughter suggested he make a quilt, he took her up on the challenge.  It took him a couple of years, but since she was getting married this summer, he just had to have it finished!

What I can't believe though,  is that the quilt consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces, of all white and white-on-white fabrics!  How grueling that must that have been!  Even an accomplished quilter would find that difficult to do!  It was a big one, too, 98"x113"!

Not only that, but he hand-embroidered the label on the back, too!  (Sorry, I forgot to get a photo of it!)

 Ron just wanted it simply quilted, with Polydown batting inside.  Turned out very cozy-looking!

He did an amazing job!

Creston Quilt Show 2011

Earlier this spring, I attended the Quilt Show in Creston BC.  See the slideshow in the sidebar to the right. (Forgive me of any errors or omissions!)

My husband and I were in town for other reasons, but I convinced him to drop me off for an hour, so I was busy running through the show, snapping photos and chatting with a few people, while I carefully watched the time.  I was quite impressed with the variety of the quilts on display, the guild certainly is a talented bunch!

I was impressed with the challenges that were evident.  In one, each participant pulled a colour chip at random, and had to create a black and white quilt with some of their chosen colour inserted.

Another grouping showed a number of quilts made with the same iris pattern, and it was interesting how each person made the pattern up in their own way.

I think the shows theme was an Oriental one, so there was also an Oriental grouping, not sure if it was a challenge or not.

There were displays of quilts that were a result of workshops put on by Susan Purney-Mark, and Pippa Moore, both from Vancouver Island.

Eileen Gidman is a local artist who paints onto fabric, and there were a few items on display from a workshop that some quilters took with her.

There were several other art quilts that were also a result of classes some had taken.

All in all, I was very inspired and it was the highlight of my day!  (Next to spending time with my hubby, of course!)

Oriental Carpet Bargello Quilt called Arabian Nights

Mary just picked up the quilt she left for me to do.  It was one of the most beautiful quilts I've ever had in my studio!

I think she called it Oriental Carpet, it was designed by a woman in Edmonton Alberta, who had a quilt shop at one time. Mary had purchased a kit and taken a workshop.

The quilt reminded Mary of Turkish carpets.  She had spent some time travelling in Turkey and had brought home some rugs as souvenirs.

If you look closely at the border fabric, there is a fantastic print that reminds her of the Whirling Dervishs'  in Turkey, who perform a trance-like, spinning dance as a form of worship.

So, she chose a panto called "Plush" by Lorien Quilting, which also conveys spinning.

She used a beautiful Northcott Stonehenge flannel for the backing.

Mary was so pleased with her quilt, she even shed a few tears, which was a wonderful compliment to me.  

Log Cabin Star

Another lady named Audrey brought me this quilt top that she and her mother pieced together to be given as a wedding gift.  They did a great job, considering they live hundred of miles apart!

We chose Drifting Leaves pantograph, and a nice variegated thread. 

The ladies were thrilled with the way it turned out. 

Storm At Sea

Audrey is one of the most senior members in our guild.  I think she and her husband recently celebrated their 65th Wedding Anniversary!  She continues to amaze us with her fabulous quilts!

This Storm at Sea is a recent example of what she creates.   I just love this pattern, so much movement and not a curve in place!

She made this one for her son.  He is an outdoorsy guy who grew up here near the lake, and there is a scrap of fabric depicting a sailboat, somewhere among all those pieces. 
























So, for the body of the quilt I used Jodi Beamish's Waterworld pantograph.

 In the outer border I put some mariner's compass' in the corners (not pictured unfortunately) .

From Anne Bright's book called "Simply Continuous Boys to Men"  I got the North, South, East and West symbols and in between I placed a row of sailboats that I came up with myself!.

 It's such a joy to work on a lovely quilt!

Dinosaurs, Trucks, Fishing, things little boys are made of

A few months ago Donna brought me these 3 cute quilts, made for some special boys in her life, probably grandsons, but I can't say for sure. 

The first is a cute truck
panel quilt.  It had a nice pieced backing, so we just chose a simple meander overall.













The second is made with a Dinosaur Panel.  The closest panto I had to match is a Gecko one, so that is what we went with. 

 

 

 The 3rd quilt was made with a fisherman panel, so realistic!  Donna inserted a couple of photographs of her own little fisherman.

A variety of quilting was used, some meander with fishing lures (by Anne Bright) , and some basic freehand meandering, clouds, etc. 

 What a lucky bunch of kids!

Northcott Stonehenge Fabrics

I recently completed a quilt for Denise.  She found the pattern in a magazine comprised of many Stonehenge Fabrics.  She searched high and low for just the right ones!

I decided to use some of my curvy rulers to create some movement.  The fabrics really reminded me of mosaic tile floors, and the curves gave them a Turkish/Mid-East flavour. 

Straight lines in the inner border created a "resting place" between the busy border and body of the quilt. 

Because the quilt was square, the corners worked out perfectly!

Blast From the Past

Going to jump back to April again, and show you a few quilts I did for Carol.

"Never Again!" was an amazing quilt made up of hundreds of tiny pieces.  They originated from a Mary Ellen Hopkins workshop taught by Diane Jansson , originally called "Inlaid Tiles".  She was meant to make a placemat, but Carol took it to the extreme and made a bed-size quilt instead, and she says Never Again to that!  It turned out fabulous!

We chose the panto called Paisley Delight.



Carol also completed the Mystery Quilt project that Olga had also participated in, (see previous post called Olga's Flower Garden).  So, they basically made the same kind of blocks, but they arranged them totally different and came up with two different-looking quilts!

I did a variety of quilting, butterflies in the plain squares, continuous curves, ruler work, freehand loops, etc.  Kept me on my toes!


The 3rd quilt I did for Carol was a Christmas wreath.
She provided me with some Holly stencils for the corners, and I did a Holly vine in the border. 

Native Rainbow

This is the name of the Guild Raffle Quilt that I posted a couple of posts ago. The pattern comes from Lorraine Torrence Designs.

It is customary of our guild to make 2 quilt tops while working on the raffle quilt, and the second one is drawn between the ladies who have participated.

Sheila was the lucky recipient, she was just so excited to own the second quilt top, she called me the same day to book time for me to quilt it!

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving lady, as Sheila puts hours and days into her volunteer work, which includes gathering quilts for the Rotary-sponsored Cleft Palette Surgeries in developing countries.  She has been at it for several years, and continues to encourage local guilds to help out. 

Sheila wanted me to quilt it the same way I did the actual raffle quilt.