Orange Crush!

It's been awhile since I posted, I seem to be missing my quilting mojo! But this usually happens at this time of year, my sewing room is too hot in the summer and there is a lot of gardening to do instead and one trip to Calgary in between.

Still I have made some progress on a few things....Orange Crush (working title only, in honour of the Netherlands in the world cup), final design, 14x16 = 224 squares:

 I have sewed all my squares into strips....this is the tricky part, you do not want them to get mixed up.

I numbered each row with an arrow to tell me which direction to press the seams.

I would stack my squares and sew one pair together and do a leaders and enders project (1.5 inch random squares) in between, which worked out fine until I ran out of squares!

near the end I tried to chain piece two strips at a time, but soon it went wonky and had to do some seam ripping to finish.

All the strips are done, do not have photo as wind blew them off the wall and I have not put them back up, good thing they are numbered!

Fanshawe Pioneer Village

This year's guild banquet was at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. We had our dinner in the Miller Barn.

It was a beautiful, rustic setting but the benches were uncomfortable!  But the highlight of the evening, for me, was going to be viewing the infamous collection of antique quilts that the village stores, but rarely puts out for display.

First we walked to the Jury homestead where a few quilts were on display in the rooms.

Then we headed to their processing center, where they catalogue and store their artifacts.

This is how they are stored on racks, rolled on acid free rods and covered with white sheets. They draped about 8 of them for display with a few smaller items on the table.

 my favourite was this red and white signature quilt....each signature hand embroidered!

a very interesting crazy quilt:

hand-pieced hexagon quilt, circa 1930-40's

the quilter cut her hexagons from the city directory

a top, never quilted, so many 1 inch squares!

a collection is never complete without a log cabin quilt!

 a well-worn quilt!

It was truly wonderful to see these old quilts, I wish we could have seen more, but obviously many are so fragile, but still a tragedy that they are hidden away. Our guide says she thinks it will take 5 years to finish cataloguing them...I think they do not have enough staff or volunteers... it would be nice if we cannot see them that they take some professional photos and produce a book, postcards or a calendar of these awesome treasures....I guess we will have to wait and see.

50th Anniversary quilt

I wanted to make a quilt for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, but it was really tough trying to figure out what to do, until I spotted this fabric at Hyggeligt. This fabric has the accent colours of my parents' bedroom, I thought "perfect!" but it had to pass the mom test first so I showed it to her and she approved :). But what to do with it...my mom loves whites and neutrals and does not do wonky or liberated... total opposite of me :P I came up with a general design with baskets and showed it to her.

She made suggestions, she was very specific: 5 baskets in a diamond shape and the rest off-white.

I thought it was a little plain but with the right machine quilting it could be amazing! Unfortunately I could not get it done in time for their anniversary as I ran out of the off white fabric and so did the store so I had to wait for a restock...so I gave this postcard as a substitute gift along with some nice brandy...

meanwhile the fabric finally came in and I finished the top, yay! I added on a little border.

but now my mom says it's too plain! it needs some applique in the corners.....d'oh! maybe I will get this done before their 51st anniversary! lol!

Workshop with Jacquie Gering

This month our guild had Jacquie Gering from Tall Prairie Grass Studio as guest. What a speaker what an inspiration! As I was listening to her, even though we make different type quilts, we had similar experiences and inspirations along our quilting journeys. Above and below are two of her log cabin quilts, the colourful one was a tribute to Josef Albers and his book Interaction of Color. (see my Albers' post from 2013)

I was thrilled to participate in her workshop on  the Saturday. She taught her stitch and flip method. I was already familiar with this method having done something very similar at Gwen's workshops. It is amazing that 2 people can get the same ideas but coming from different places and taking them in different directions!

For the workshop I had a 5 inch charm pack for my scraps and then I selected 2 yards of solid orange to match. I then raided my own scraps for added variety.  I made 3.5 inch orange squares and cut my charm packs both ways on the diagonal. I zipped through my first batch of chain piecing and then it was onto the design wall. Then more chain piecing, then more on the design wall, more piecing, etc. I completed over 90 squares, and still need lots more!

The hardest part of this was the designing, putting the pieces together as Jacquie says it is not block piecing it is quilt piecing.

There is something wrong with this one....what is it? you can stare at it and not see it...it was not until I got home and looked at the photos did I see the mistake....

ta da!

Still lots more to do! but I got my quilting mojo back! thanks Jacquie!

My biggest fear - conquered!

Like most people, my biggest fear is public speaking, so when my guild asked me to do a trunk show, I emailed back and said sorry but no, appreciate the offer but....but, I hesitated before I hit send. why do I not want to do it? 1. fear 2. I make weird quilts.

2. I make weird quilts....that is not a good reason to not do it, but a great reason to do it. People might actually find the stories about my quilts interesting. I think I have a motivation that is different than a lot of people. Sharing that would be entertaining to other quilters, I would hope. Lots of quilters are quite happy to make their quilts from other people's patterns, but it is hard to move out of that box, perhaps if I show them how I did, maybe they could to.

1. So that leaves Fear...that they will laugh at me? no that was my fear in highschool, humiliation and inadequacy.....I actually do not have that fear anymore, then fear of what? It is the fear of not being able to get my point across, to articulate my position....but I have been blogging about quilting for 8 years now, and I think I have been able to get my stories about my quilts out there, now I just have to say them out loud and not just in my head! surely exposing myself to the world in cyberspace is much more scary than in front of your friends who all share the same passion.

So I deleted that email and said I would do it! They asked me in August last year, so March 2014 was so far off into the future anyway! Well March is here and my husband deserted me in my hour of need to go visit a friend in Texas, could he go any further away?! but that actually turned out to be a blessing. I had no distractions in getting all my quilts in order and an overview written up. I practiced out loud in front of the cats....rewrite! practice again....much better. I was ready but nervous.

The big day! I got my closest quilting friends to help me, 2 of them to hold up my quilts, Christine and Gail and then Jill in the audience to take photos for me. And you know what? it went fine! I did not read everything off my paper, but when I lost my place it was there to get me back on track. I did not say everything I wanted to say, but I think it was well received. So I am proud of myself for taking the chance and overcoming this fear!

here is a link to guild version of my trunk show

Wool Applique Workshop with Jill Buckley

On Saturday, I attended a guild workshop put on by my friend Jill Buckley. She is an amazing artist and teacher. We all had a great time as you can see by the smiling faces!