BIQR 2010: The Characters

First there are the 4 Carol's! (left to right) Carol from Rochester Hills, MI, Carol from Houghton Lake, MI. These are a couple of Gwen's people...veterans of retreats from the past. If Gwen is not available these ladies know what's going on. Then there is newbie, Carol from California and me simply known as Canadian Carol.







California Carol came with Martha to the retreat. Martha was liberating her 30's prints with polka dots.

We had quite a few newbies actually! Joni and Penny were from Kentucky. Joni is a natural at liberating quilting and the parts department. Her quilts were full of brilliant colours and designs.

Penny worked with solids...

Kathy's work was inspired by her cottage on an island in Maine. She came with these blocks already made, but looking for input. Each block is a pieced representation of each of the cottages that are on that island. She wants them to all hang individually not as one quilt.



One of the pieces she worked on at the retreat were liberated buoys based on those that the lobster fishermen use. Each fisherman's buoy is painted differently to identify them.

Cats were Sally's inspiration. She decided she was going to use up her cat fabric.

There is a little bit of Canadian Carol in this quilt! I donated the Emily the Strange cat eyes tag!

Sara from Grand Rapids also has a quilting blog and you can check it out here. She and I are both participants in Tonya's Liberated Amish Quilt Challenge. She brought her Triangles project, adding "Amish Lib." and "MMX Sara" to finish it up.

Another one of her projects is this cut up crumb piece, gorgeous in its boldness! There was apparently quite the discussion about what colour borders to put on it! But Red won out! Striking!

Watch out though! Sara can sew you under the table, she is quite the industrious lady, starting early in the morning!

When in doubt make a sampler! Liberated quiltmaking is so limitless that is often hard to know where to start. So trying a little bit of everything and putting it all together is fun! Bev made this gem:

Next Post: Addiction, The Characters part 2

BIQR 2010: The Setting

The setting is northern Michigan, in early fall. A road trip from London, Ontario, Canada to Elk Rapids, Michigan. Two best friends going to a quilt retreat hosted by the amazing Gwen Marston. A short detour to avoid the busy traffic of Flint, revealed quaint rural communities readying themselves for harvest and halloween, many untouched by the big box invasion of Walmarts and outlet stores, still bearing the signs of the past.





The final destination was White Birch Lodge in Elk Rapids.
The lodge was getting ready for its winter hibernation, with the small boats resting on the beach,...

leaves dropping into the puddles of water collecting on board...

The view from the sewing room was the beautiful Elk Lake, sun streaming in every day!

Sunny and warm for 5 days straight!

Next post: The Characters

It's not dead yet!

I am in a hurry to finish up some projects for our upcoming guild show on October 1st. I took a workshop at the guild with Renske Helmuth to learn how to make a landscape wall hanging....I am not sure if landscapes are for me. I found it very difficult to choose the fabrics for an imaginary landscape....I think if I had make it from a photograph I could match up fabrics much better. I did finish the top, I just had to quilt it so I can put it in the show.

I am a novice machine quilter, and I didn't have a clue how to quilt this thing. I first stitched around the beige border 1/4 inch...that was fine, then I did 1/2 inch around that...that sucked...picked it all out...stared at it and stared at it, could not decide what to do....did not want to do any more picking out....so then I did just inside the green border...fine, then I stippled around the outer border fine, but now the lighter border was a little loose and needed to be flattened...so I quilted lines in there and that's when I thought I had killed it! OMG the landscape in the middle was all puffy! it looked ridiculous! now I know why they always want you to quilt from the middle out instead of from the outside in! I was pretty much ready to chuck it! but I thought well maybe I can quilt in some clouds and flatten it a bit, that worked but now the bottom was puffy, so I quilted in some grass along the bottom. It was a lot better but not perfect.

This is how it looks on the bottom:

Finished product; ta-da!

Not my finest work, but I sure learned a lot! Will I ever do another landscape? not sure, the jury is still out.

Gee's Bend Quilts in London, Ontario!

Last week I attended the Quilts of Gee's Bend show at the London Convention Centre. It was awesome! At first I was a little shocked, it didn't seem like there were a lot of quilts for my $9 entry fee. But I knew about these quilts, I knew there was more to them then that, I just had to find it. Unfortunately there were no descriptions on the quilts, telling you who made them and what their stories were...that didn't help. In my second round of viewing the quilts I noticed a trio of ladies sitting behind a table hand sewing blocks.

On the table were small wall hangings for sale....I asked them if it was alright to take photos and they said sure it was, and that started the conversation. My friend Chantal came over and wanted to see what they were working on and that got them more animated. China got up and showed me her quilts that were hanging up and I was even allowed to take this photo in front of my favourite of her quits.

Then Chantal came over with her copy of Architect of the Quilt Book and asked the ladies to sign it. I noticed the dwindling pile of books and thought its now or never, I should pick up one and have it signed. so I did! and I am so glad I did, I picked up The Quilts of Gee's Bend (the other was sold out) I have been reading this book every day, it is awesome!

What a story, what living history! Bev at the Cotton By Post booth and Chantal said that you really have to go to the lecture, but I missed the lecture that day...so Chantal and I agreed to go on Thursday for the lecture. Boy, am I glad I went! What a story. The lecture started with China singing a gospel tune and then Matt Arnett telling us the history of the quilts and then China talking about what it was like to live in Gee's Bend. Fascinating!

The label on this quilt says Faded Glory Jeans, an apt name for this quilt!

It puts all those quilts into perspective, it gives you the story, the culture, and the art of Gee's Bend. If you did not go to the lecture you really missed half the show. My only regret is that I was unable to return to do the workshop too. Matt mentioned that they are hoping to do a showing at the AGO in Toronto, some time in the future...I am hoping that they do, because I will go again!

I love the blue, red and beige in this house top variations quilt.

I fell in love with the corduroy quilts, the colours were so strong!

Woo Hoo! Another project done!

Just finished my floor scrap quilt from Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat 2009! On the last day of the retreat Gwen encourages us to search the floor for scraps and create something from it. It's a lot of fun! and inside this piece are a lot of memories...I can remember other participants by their fabric! I really like this one way more than my 2008 one...this one almost has a story to tell. At first I think of the song "Sunshine, Lolipops, and Rainbows", but then I think that the purple "lolipop" is Gwen, our mentor, and the other smaller "lolipops" are her devoted students, the crazy background is the place where creativity comes from. kinda corny, I know, but it reminds me of a happy place!

This piece measures 12x 14.5 inches on the longest sides and is hand quilted with black thread.

Remember the Row Robin?

Well we finally received out rows from the other participants in May....and they have been up on my "design wall" since then. But finally I just bit the bullet and said "let's get this thing done!" For the longest time I thought I was going to applique some stems and leaves on those giant lilies, but could not get it to look right...so I made up some more 4 patch borders and rearranged the order. I think with some clever machine stitching I could zip it up a notch.

I will probably make some yo-yo centres for the pairs of flowers and embroider some tea pouring out of the spout....maybe an applique butterfly or two with the baskets...I think I will call it Garden Tea Party.

More Block Challenges

Christine and I took a road trip to the Shedden quilt show. What a surprise to see that the block I entered in a challenge was displayed, finished in a quilt, at the greeting table! My block can be seen over the right shoulder of the lady on the left.

I had entered another block challenge, this time from Trend-Tex. You bought a kit with fabric and had to create a 12.5 inch block from the fabric provided. Easier said than done! The amount of each fabric are not equal in size. I called my block Bamboo Nights.



In total there were 4 quilts made from all the blocks and it was fun to see how many were blocks made from LFQGuild members!