Great Weather for Ducks and Quilters

The above picture was taken from my window today. The rain is falling and the lake is rising. We've had one of the rainiest summers of recent years which is bad news for lots of folk, but looking on the bright side, a day like today is good weather for quilting.

So I've continued to work on my quilt in progress, which is another attempt to use up the stash. This quilt (which I've provisionally called Garden Flowers, for lack of something more interesting and because I used mostly floral patterned fabrics) is my own design but derived from a number of different sources. It begins as a disappearing nine-patch and I decided to make it a quilt-as-you-go pattern.

When the nine-patches were sewn and cut into four, I stitched a narrow strip of green along the seam lines of each quarter.

Next I cut same-sized squares of batting and backing and layered the squares together. I stitched along the edge of the green strips and stitched a leaf design in the largest square. This is the back of the block.

The next stage will be to sew the blocks together in rows using sashing strips. Here is part of the layout with strips of fabric laid on the blocks to show you the idea.
There is a centre panel to be made yet. But that will be next month's blog, if I get it done by then. In the meantime, I've lots of keep me busy. If the rain continues I'll have a nice cosy quilt to put in the ark!

Change of Pace

After bingeing on baby quilts for the past two months - six and a half finished and the binding left to do on the seventh- I've turned to something totally different. It's been several years since my little show of fabric landscapes. These are not quilts, but use fabric to make small (5x7 inch)landscape scenes. I've put them in note cards to be given to special people, but in the future I hope to make mini-landscape quilts, or perhaps, postcards. It's fun to be back working with fabrics to create an imagined scene or re-create a scene from a photo.
Here are a few that I've finished so far.

Cute and Cuddly

With the arrival of the great news of another grandchild on the way, this grandma's immediate response of joy was followed by thoughts of baby quilts. So that's what I've been doing this past month. I've completed six so far and have a couple more to finish. Even for a doting grandmother that may seem excessive, so I hasten to add that not all will be for the new family member. Some will go to The Salvation Army Auxilliary's Harvest Auction, held each October, by which time we will be in Singapore for the birth of our new grandchild. There's nothing like getting a head start! And I have such fun making baby quilts. You will see by the pictures the quilts are quite simple and have a range of styles and colours. We don't yet know whether pink or blue should be the dominant colour, so there's some of each and some different also. Here are a few of them. Click on the image if you would like to see more detail.

Boxcar Buz

While I just managed to get my February blog in under the wire, March has just zipped by with no blog, and here it is, April already. Not that I wasn't busy quilting in March. In fact I was so busy that I didn't have time, (or perhaps, take the time) to update my blog. Two projects occupied my time and space. One is not completed yet, but I'm making progress. The other is finished and you can see it above. Like all quilts it has its own story.

Last fall, a friend showed me the pattern for "Boxcar Buz" as it is called and asked if I could make the wall-hanging for her. Knowing we were going away for several months, I agreed to do it in the new year, if she wasn't in a hurry for it. She smiled at that and said a few more months wouldn't matter as she'd had the pattern for years. Her husband, Gerry, had been a model train enthusiast and one day had come home with the pattern and handing it to his wife said, hopefully, "You can make this, can't you?" Her response was along the lines of "You must be joking." She was not a quilter and realized that this project was not for her. So the pattern got packed away and almost forgotten, until she came upon it years later after her husband had passed away. Gerry had been a good friend of ours, so I was happy to take on the challenge. As I worked, many memories of the fine man he was and the good times we had shared came to mind. When I struggled with a difficult part, or accepted that my work wasn't going to be perfect, I thought if Gerry could see it, his keen eye would see its deficiencies, but, gentleman that he was, he probably wouldn't say anything about it.

Reading the information that came with the pattern from Crystal Clear Designs, I learned that the pattern was created in memory of another railroad buff by his daughter.

With its many small pieces, it was a challenge, but I'm glad to have done it and also glad that it's done.

Quilting Encounters Downunder

Auckland, New Zealand

After spending two months in the balmy summer weather of Australia and New Zealand, where the temperatures were around 30 deg. C, it was a bit of a shock to come back to Edmonton's biting winter cold and temperatures closer to minus 30 deg. C. But from a quilter's viewpoint, having less incentive to go out and more time at home is a plus. Having been away from my quilting "studio" for so long, I was eager to get back (especially since my carry-on bag was full of fabric which wouldn't fit into my already bulging suitcase). So less than 24 hours after I arrived home, the fabric was all washed and I was starting work on a new project. (More about that in a later blog.)

However, my two months "Downunder" were not without some quilting related experiences. As you would imagine, I visited quilt shops wherever I saw them, and found that in spite of the high cost of quilting cottons, most of which are imported, there are many very enthusiastic and accomplished quilters in both Australia and New Zealand.

In Port Stephens, about a 3-hour drive north of Sydney, a group of quilters were meeting at the Community Arts Centre the day we visited there. When I met them and explained that I was a quilter from Canada, they immediately asked me to join them. Some of them had visited Canada and another was excited about her plans to visit the Houston Quilt Show. I spent a very happy time comparing notes, looking at their projects, and generally enjoying myself, until my patient husband looked in the door and I knew it was time to move on.

In Whitianga, on the Coromandel peninsula in New Zealand, at an outdoor market, a stall full of brightly coloured quilts caught my eye and I stopped to talk to the owner. Her eye-catching quilts were priced at a very reasonable figures and when I remarked on this, she explained that she kept her prices low so she would sell her quilts more quickly, as there were so many more patterns she wanted to try. In fact that was the only reason she had the stall at all!

In the tiny town of Bungendore, NSW, where we'd stopped for a tea-break and a walk round, we found "Bungendore Country Patchwork". In Devonport, Auckland I was delighted to see fabrics with New Zealand motifs in "Cushla's Village Fabrics."

In Taupo, NZ, it was

"Clever Hands, The Patchwork Quilt Store"

which enticed me in.

'"Nancy's" in Wellington had a great selection of quilting and embroidery supplies. In all of these delightful shops, it was a pleasure to chat with the friendly staff (who were sometimes the owners) and I couldn't leave any of them without at least a token purchase to add to my stash.

So, here I am with happy memories of a wonderful trip, more fabrics to enjoy and plenty of ideas for future quilts. What more could a quilter want? Well, a little warmer temperatures would be nice!

Christmas Quilt

About nine years ago, we were in Australia and in the course of our trip I was asked to give a talk to a ladies' group which included some quilters and also some new to the craft and to provide them with a small handwork project which they could work on and, if necessary, finish at home. I decided to show them three ways to make the bow tie block and several ways to set it, and then allow them to make the block of their choice by hand. I chose Christmas fabrics for my demo, thinking I would later put the finished blocks into a Christmas quilt. It was many years before I completed the quilt above, which I called "Bows in Boxes", but I was thinking of that quilt lately as we are off to Australia for Christmas and an extended visit which will include three weeks in New Zealand. I've not planned any quilt related activities, but, I'm sure there'll be some quilt shops along the way for me to visit and chat with quilters there. If this blog is not up-dated for quite a while, you'll know that I'm still travelling.

To all my quilting friends, those I've met and those I've yet to meet, my best wishes for a happy Christmas and many good quilting experiences in the new year.

Successful Sale

After months of planning, organizing and sewing, our Mission Possible Sale is over and I'm happy to say it was a great financial success, raising approximately five thousand dollars for projects in developing nations. Attached are a few photos, taken rather hurriedly near the end of the set-up day, hence the rather poor quality.

On a personal note, I was pleased to see that three of my larger quilts plus several wall-hangings and lots of smaller items were purchased, one intended as a gift for a family member in eastern Canada. And my reversible quilt will be going to a new home, some time in the future.

So after an intensive two months of quilting and sewing, I've been taking it pretty easy, with only one little project started, but several others waiting in line. One of which is a quilt, or quilts, based on the mosaic designs I saw on our trip to Italy last April. They are only in the design stages so far, but I know the type of fabrics I want and will be on the look-out for them as we travel to the US and "down-under" in December and January.

Happy quilting.