First Quilt Progress

First Quilt

I had put this quilt aside for a bit while I worked on the Magnolia Quilt, but have now been inspired to get back at it. I had been struggling with the quilting on it anyway, and needed a break. I put in some very large circles, and they had begun to get tedious. So now that hard part is finished.  I did like the way the straight line quilting in the border of the Magnolia Quilt looked, so I decided to carry that idea over into this one. And I like it here, too. I`ve been wondering what to put in between the circles, and I`m thinking I might try some cross-hatching.

This, by the way, is the first quilt I ever pieced together. I saw a tiny photo in a quilt magazine, of what I now know to be a pineapple quilt. I think it was 2000 or 2001. I did some drawing and math, and made it without a pattern. If I remember right, I started the block at the corner, instead of the centre like everybody else! In any case, I had a pieced top, but no idea how to quilt it. So it got put away until recently, when I made up my mind to master both the quilt sandwich and free motion quilting. This seemed like a good practice quilt. And now that I can see the end in sight, I`d like to have it finished, of course.

I`m linking up to Leah Days Free Motion Quilting Project, here.  I first heard about Leah Day when I was in Houston for the International Quilt Festival in 2011.  I wasn`t doing much FMQ at the time, but I was sure intrigued, and I think it was then that I committed myself to becoming better / good at the quilting part of making a quilt.  Leah Day has a great site, showing with videos how to do all kinds of fmq designs. Have a look at what she and others are doing with their quilting.

I'm also linking up with Stitch by Stitch: Anything Goes, here, and the Needle and Thread network, here.  That Needle and  Thread Network is a Canadian blog, with link-ups every week for Work In Progress Wednesday, and this is the 100th posting. There are a lot of really great Canadian Quilters out there, and that blog is a great place to see their work.

Quilt Guild Fun

Quilters Newsletter Magazine
April/May 2012 issue

What has the April/May 2012 issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine have to do with my quilt guild?  Last night, our guest presenter was Kathy K. Wylie, from Whitby. She has been quilting for many years, and her most recent quilt, Flourish on the Vine, is the culmination of her work.

Kathy K. Wylie's
Flourish on the Vine, detail

I loved hearing her story, and seeing her quilts. It's easy to see the progression of her quilting style, seeing a lot of her quilts at once. And like myself and many other quilters, she began sewing at a young age, starting with clothing, and later turning to the creativity of quilts.

 I actually saw this spectacular quilt at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. I went back through my photos from that show to have another look. I saw so many quilts at that show, and reviewing my photos brings it all back.

So you can imagine my delight to realize this same quilt was made by our speaker.  It took Kathy two years to complete, and has wonderful details in the applique, machine quilting, and use of colour. Her story and how she developed this quilt are all in the magazine. You may check out her website through this link.  I saw last night all the quilts she has on her website.  What a treat.

The result of all this is that I am pumped about working on my own quilts. I was at my machine all afternoon today, working on one of my photo quilts. I am determined to get some of them finished!

Quilt Guild Presentation - Ailsa Craig Quilt Festival

Wednesday night was my Waterloo County Quilter's Guild meeting, and there were two treats in store for us. Well, there are always many treats, like member show and tell, a well-stocked library, a featured quilt store, and a fabric bank. There is always an excellent presentation by a known quilter, but for this meeting there was an added bonus.

The first presentation we saw was by a volunteer group from Ailsa Craig, which is near London, Ontario. Jane Walker spoke about how the group came to fruition when they wanted to continue bringing in international quilters to the London area. This year, May 1st to 5th, 2012, they are presenting Quilts of Denmark, and had some examples to show. They have been travelling to many quilt guilds to drum up interest in their show. What a fabulous way to promote their show: the audience gets to see some of the quilts, hear from other quilters, (and their husbands!), all before the actual show itself. I greatly enjoyed this presentation, and now must see the entire show. There are workshops as well, and I'll have to see if I can schedule in at least one.

This photo is of Jane Walker, with four of the Quilts of Denmark. From left to right, we see Starry Starry Night by Maria Harrits, Out of the Box by Merethe Soeby, Travelling Scrap Quilt by Lena Cristensen, and Ladybirds in Shadow by Britta Stade.

Later that evening, the main presentation was by Cathy Miller, the singing quilter. She is somewhat world famous, having been singing about quilts for some years now, and in many locations around the world. She tours with her husband, and was in the Waterloo area this week for our guild meeting. What a wonderful show she does. If you've ever seen her quilts, or heard her sing, you'll know what I mean. She talks about her quilts, sings about her quilts, and weaves stories about her life into her songs and her quilts. What a beautiful example of an artist living her passion. I'm very inspired. Check her website here.

Magazine Junkie

Only a few of you may know me as a magazine-aholic, though I've made no effort to keep this secret. I try to limit myself to one or two favourites a month, but there are more and more good quilt magazines out there now. So now I try to limit myself to one or two quilt magazines, leaving my other favourites behind. My old favourites included Canadian Geographic, Moneysense, though I haven't given up Moneysense, and Harrowsmith Country Life, which has now ceased publication.

A recent road trip included deeking into Chapters to look for the latest offers, and I found three choice quilt magazines.

One of my regular favourites, that I hardly ever miss out on, is Quilting Arts Magazine. From this magazine, I draw inspiration and ideas. It is wonderful to see what others are doing in the Art Quilt world. There is always a feature artist, quilts from recent shows, art techniques, and reader challenge quilts. All good stuff for me. Keeps me dreaming of the day I have my own dedicated studio, and what I will do when I get there! If you click on the link, you'll also find a lot of other interesting stuff on the QAM website, blogs, e-zines, how-to's, quilt shows, and much more. Once in a while, I check this website out, too.

Another recent magazine I've just begun picking up, is Art Quilting Studio. This magazine, too, showcases art quilts. And what wonderful art these artists are doing. There is some instruction, as well, but mostly what I enjoy seeing is the depth and breadth of various artists' work. Simply amazing. This issue shows work in many different styles, including articles on an orderly approach to Grout Quilting by Robin Ferrier, and a freeform style on Designing With Intuition by Deborah Fell. Very inspiring, both of them. Check out both of their links to see more of their work.

And the third magazine I found is a new one for me, International Quilt Festival. Wow. This one had not crossed my radar screen before, but now that I've been to IQF in Houston, this magazine really grabbed my attention. This issue had a lot of photos of the quilts I saw in Houston, and it just took me right back there. Love it. I enjoyed Houston so much, and this magazine so much, I'm thinking of going there again this year. Maybe crazy, but that's how quilt people are. On a side note, I'm in the process of picking holidays at work for the upcoming year, and I find myself picking weeks that include quilt festivals.

I'll include one last word on magazines. Available in my local grocery store is an old standby, Quilters Newsletter Magazine, for all things newsy in the world of quilting. I've enjoyed this magazine for about 12 years now, buying it before I actually made any quilts. It was my first inspiration for making quilts, and continues to be a good source for me, though I admit to not faithfully picking up every issue, being interested more now specifically in art quilts than traditional quilts. This magazine always contains a nice mix of art quilts, pieced quilts, patterns, readers' quilts, upcoming show info, new gadgets, and general quilt world news. It will continue to be a favourite.

A Houston Finish

So that very pretty yarn I bought in Houston is now knitted into a scarf. I needed a model to show it off, and my faithful cat, Tigger, was only too happy to help out. The wool has mohair in it, and it is very cuddly and warm, and I love wearing it. And I like the way it looks all bubbly and colourful.

I started another scarf from some wool I've had in my collection for a while now. I haven't been doing very much sewing lately, though. Hopefully I'll get back at it now that Christmas is past.

Cold November Rain

Ok, so it's not that cold for November here, it's actually fairly mild (11C), but raining all day today. Yesterday was sunny and also warm, so we put up our Christmas lights out in front of the house. I am old school in using energy hogging incandescent lights, instead of the new led ones, because I like the way they look. I put a giant string on the boulevard tree which pretty much lights up the whole street! Being the eco nut that I am, we also put everything on a timer so they go on at 7:00pm when the hydro rates drop in half. We have one of those lit up deer that I especially like.

This rain today is perfect for sewing. I've been working on some Christmas stuff, that I can't disclose for a little while. But I can say that last year I made a bunch of table runners out of Christmas fabric. I was pulling out Christmas stuff from boxes, and there they were. In my usual fashion, I only ran a few straight lines in for the quilting stitches.

I must say that being in Houston with Cindy and Leanne open my eyes about those quilting stitches. Leanne has a long arm quilting machine, so I was able to see quilting through her eyes. We all saw so clearly, that it is the image or pattern or colour on a quilt top that draws us in, and then we would all see the quilting stitching when we looked closer. We all really enjoyed looking very closely at all the different types of stitches, and all resolved to get better at that part of our quilting.

So when I saw these table runners, they looked nearly naked! And I decided to lay down some free motion quilting stitching. It came pretty easily, actually. It was good practice. Mostly, I followed the lines in the print, and added some infill around the buildings and gingerbread people. This is just the first one, I may be doing the rest as well. Maybe not this year! There are a lot of things to do, all of a sudden.

Laptop Case

I decided before I went to Houston, that I wanted to take my laptop with me. Heavy, doesn't fit in my backpack, but it might be useful for looking up stuff in the hotel at night. It's fairly new, and I hadn't yet acquired a case for it. I had in mind a zippered colourful neoprene thing. That's what I had in mind. What I ended up with is colourful all right, but not zippered, not neoprene!  I looked around the house for another UFO I knew was somewhere. . . I found this.

I had this quilted piece around, one of the first things I made, before I knew anything about quilting.  Looking at it now, I didn't know how to do bindings or applique. It all seems pretty unorthadox now, but I really like the colours, and the second chakra design I worked with at the time.  And I didn't have much stash to work with!  My stash has improved immensely by now, and I probably wouldn't have stuck that turquoise on it.

Anyway, it didn't have any quilting on it, so I did some quick free-motion work to it, joined the corners together, added some velcro for a closure, and voila:  a brand new laptop case. And it makes good use of an old piece that wasn't seeing any action before.

More on Houston

 When I was in Houston, one of the quilt displays I saw was a selection of Texas Star Quilts.  It was an amazing display of a variety of pieced, appliqued and art quilts, mostly with a star or Texas theme. All were made in Texas by Texas residents.  Here you see the front and back covers of the book, Lone Stars III: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, 1986 - 2011, by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes. Images reproduced here with written permission.

There were two previous books about earlier Texas quilts, and this third book represents the more recent history of quilts in Texas. It was a very impressive display. I think I've said this before, but to see the quilts in print is one thing, but to see them on display is quite another. You get to see the stitching and pieces up close, and get a real feel for the piece in person.

There was no photography allowed in this particular exhibit, so I bought the book. I am pleased to do so in any case, since it is the best representation of the show, and is a good memory keepsake of my trip to Houston.

New Projects

When I was in Houston, we were talking about which project we each would start first, from all the goodies we bought. I wasn't sure, I think I said I would finish a white Winding Ways quilt I already have going. Well, I have been so excited about a ball of hand-dyed yarn I picked up, that I just had to start knitting a scarf. I had one in progress, but did not like the way the yarn was knitting up, so just now I cast that one off. It will never be finished up anyway. Maybe I can use that small piece somewhere else.

This casting off was soon followed by casting on the new yarn. It's not like I don't have other yarns to knit, but you know how it goes. Something new is always  more exciting than something old. So far, I love the way this looks, and feels. It is a blend of mohair, silk and wool. And all those pretty colours, with a loopy  texture, what's not to love? I'm not a superfast knitter, though, so it may take me a while to finish my scarf. I'll keep you posted, when it's finished.

In Houston. . .

So I spent the weekend at the Houston International Quilt Festival, with two of my friends from Alberta.  I've known them for a long time, from way back in my tailoring days, and we are all quilters now. Anyway, they are both a lot of fun, and all three of us had a blast in Houston.

We will never be the same again! Seeing so many amazing and beautiful quilts all in the same place is spectacular, and changes the way you see the world of quilts. It also changes the way you see your  own place in the quilt world, and the way you create your own work, so I'm very happy to have been there. We all feel now, that there is room to improve our own work. If nothing else, seeing all the fabulous quilts will make us better quilters.

Seeing the quilt displays was one thing.  The quilt market was quite another!  HUGE. Did I mention it was huge?!  There were so many vendors, it was hard to cover them all, but not impossible. And cover them we did. We all bought a lot of fabric, gadgets, patterns, and other cool stuff that we can't find in our corners of the world. At the end of each day, we would all lay out our purchases to show and tell. So much fun. Now we all have enough projects to keep us busy for a while. Can't wait to get at it.

Marmalade's First Snow
by David Taylor

I want to include a photo of a quilt that I particularly love. A cat of course, and there were a number of cat quilts, and being a cat person, I especially like this one. When I was looking at this quilt, I feel like I've known this cat for a long time.  Plus, I really like red tabbies, so that caught my eye, too. This quilt is by David Taylor, called Marmalade's First Snow.